2006, 7th February

Lyon, France

Michael rubbed the bridge of his nose as he stepped out, blinking, into the sun.

“Had a late night?” Sacha asked him?

Michael ran a hand through his hair, silence his only reply.

He had had a late night, having returned to the Parc, Voidsuit in hand, to confirm the fact that the local Spirit Horizon was indeed as devoid of life as it had appeared on first inspection.

“By the way, I got what you asked for,” Sacha continued, “I thought you said you were a politician, not a PI. What’s with these case files?”

“I’m working a bit outside my comfort zone at the moment, yes. I owed someone a favour, and it’s always a good quality to be adaptable,” Michael said, while rifling through the files Sacha had just handed him.

Case files on the victims; a sudden rash of suicides, with bodies turning up in the waters of the Rhone.

“Thanks. Looks like we have a lot of work to do today.”

“We?”

“How comfortable are you with breaking and entering?”

Sacha chuckled, “Takes me back to my pre-teen years.”

“I see we spent our pre-teens very differently,” Michael observed dryly, “But that means you have some experience with this kind of thing. I’ll need your help on this one.”

The first victim lived nearby when she died; apparently a student at INSA, and the files went into no further detail on the nature of her studies.

“23 year old kid. A life cut short way too early. What a tragic tale,” Sacha sighed.

“How old did you say you were, again?”

“I didn’t say.”

“Then remedy that.”

Sacha shot Michael an irritated look, “You’re not used to talking to people like they’re your equals, eh?”

“34.”

“How did you-”

“I would treat you as an equal if you were one, Sacha. But never mind all that, we have a job to do.”

The victim’s name was Hua Li, and she had moved to Lyon in August of last year.

As it turned out, getting access to her in campus accommodations was suspiciously easy thanks to Michael’s presence, and Sacha easily got past the rudimentary locks.

The lingering scent of incense was the first thing they noticed as they walked in; The woman had been dead for almost a month, so the use of incense must have been significantly heavy when she was still in her room.

“I don’t know what you think you’ll find that the forensics people haven’t already found,” Sacha said sceptically.

This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

“I’m not gathering evidence. I’m trying to make a connection between the victims.”

“What connection? Suicide occurs all the time. Granted, this is an unprecedented quantity of them, but even if they were secretly being killed off by some strangler at the Parc, why would his victims need to have any connection besides simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time?”

Michael did not deign to reply, taking his time to survey Hua Li’s room.

Besides her academic material, which suggested an engineering focussed course, there were a number of texts on occultism, collected from several cultures from all over the globe, in multiple languages he didn’t recognise.

But he had seen enough.

“We’re moving onto the next.”

“So quickly? You didn’t even take the time to look properly.”

But Michael was already out the door.

The next few residences never seemed to have much in common, the owners being from different walks of life, from students to government employees, to retired widowers.

Nothing in common except the reading material on esoteric ritualised witchcraft, the exotic ingredients, and the lack of any single theme across them, more akin to thrashing for answers than any real belief in a set of practices and traditions.

“So, I suppose you found your link,” Sacha said, running his fingers along the spines of a certain book written in an unknown language in one Manon Dumas’ home, “All these people were insane. I suppose it’s no wonder they were all suicidal as well.”

“Thank you, Sacha. I think we’re done for today. I’ll let you know if I need you soon.”

“Hopefully, not too soon. I have some of my own matters to attend to later.”

“I’ll work something out.”

On his way back, Michael pulled up the database on the local Fluke population, which had apparently taken a dent recently.

He had more or less deduced what had caused these particular Flukes to catch the attention of whatever Horizontal predator was picking them off.

To compensate for their flawed souls and their inability to use Horizontal energies naturally like most supernatural creatures, Flukes were forced to rely on elaborate rituals, and had likely chosen the Parc as a location for one such gathering, inadvertently disturbing something they weren’t equipped to handle.

Flukes were in the unique position of knowing what a dangerous world they lived in, and being very ill equipped to navigate it, which made them prefer the safety of numbers.

If Michael could identify a relatively well placed individual within their community, he would begin to get somewhere.

He had to start somewhere.

Ideally, the leader would have to live near the Parc, for the ease of access it would provide to who was theoretically the most important member of the ritual circle, but Michael couldn’t discount the fact that the leader had been among the list of seven victims so far.

He needed to stir the nest some other way.

Michael, Lucia practically purred from the other side of the communicator, I wasn’t expecting your call.

Michael smiled at the satisfaction in her voice.

“I take it you’ve had an exciting night?”

It’s a start. How about you?

“I’ve made a connection between a few corpses, and I’ll soon start digging into records to find out about the still living members of this association, if there are any.”

Sacha can help you with that. He has been willing to help, hasn’t he?

“Of course. But he can only do so much, given the nature of what I have to deal with here.”

You called me for a reason.

“I need to find out who leads these people. I need a face to talk to before I start getting anywhere.”

You don’t. You just need to be the crisis their leader needs to solve. You’ll get everything you need from them without ever exchanging a word.

“I knew you’d come through for me. I really wish you were here right now.”

A little challenge in life is good, Michael.

“Hmm. All the real challenges are on your plate right now. I can’t estimate how short your window of opportunity to bring your quarry down is.”

I don’t plan to fail. And neither will you.

“Of course.”

Michael contacted Sacha once more, this time with a more complicated request.

Telephone records? Really?

“Lucia told me you could do it. I’ve rarely known her to be mistaken.”

…You’ll have them. Tomorrow.