CHAPTER THREE.

SCARY THINGS.

“Hey,” Cross said a few minutes later, while I considered my options.

“Yes?” I asked.

“You mentioned something about not smelling other people around earlier. Are you saying you have enhanced senses of some kind?”

“Yep,” I replied nonchalantly. “Sight, scent, hearing, and taste.”

“How accurate are they?” she wondered.

“Extremely,” I said. “Comparable to that of a blood hound at the very least.”

“Interesting,” Cross said. “I’ve always read that enhanced senses can be overwhelming to the point of being painful.”

“I wouldn’t know about that. I’ve been this way since I was born,” I said. “Anything I find unpleasant I just block out. It’s not difficult.”

“What can you smell about other people?”

“The usual. I can tell what others have eaten or had to drink. I can distinguish others by scent and track their whereabouts. I can even tell how recently they’ve relieved themselves in a commode.”

“Gross,” Cross grimaced.

“Like I said, you learn to block it out.”

“Anything else?” she wondered.

“Nothing much. Sexual attraction obviously, but that’s only occasionally useful.”

“You can smell if someone’s attracted to you?” Cross asked with a raised eyebrow.

“Naturally,” I said with a smug grin.

“You’re full of shit,” she said.

“True story. Honest as a fasting saint.”

“That’s harassment. Having a nose like that is harassment,” Cross said accusingly.

“Hey, just because I can tell if someone’s interested in me doesn’t mean they’d ever act on it. It doesn’t mean that I’m interested in them either. It’s just bonus information,” I replied. “It’s not really a big deal.”

“It still feels like an invasion of privacy,” said Cross. “Like degeneracy.”

“Well, what can I do about it? Should I glue my nostrils shut before I step outside?”

“Sounds like the right call to me,” Cross said with a nod.

I snorted. “You’re just jealous because you’re a competitor.”

“Damn right I am,” she said proudly. “I won’t let you sniff out all the good women in this town before I get my shot.”

“You say things like that but somehow I’m the degenerate?” I asked with a frown.

“Funny how that works out, right?” she smirked.

_

Well, now that I was on the job, I supposed that meant I was obliged to produce some results. To that end, I held open my suit jacket and said, “Come out, Orby.”

“Bleh,” said the pudgy maroon orb that floated out of my liner pocket as it blinked and turned to face me.

“What is that thing?” Cross asked with some alarm as Orby perched itself on my shoulder to await my instructions.

“Bleh,” he replied.

“Bleh?” she asked.

“Ignore him, he’s not speaking to you. He just makes random sounds,” I said as I flicked the round thing off my shoulder. “I don’t know how he does it. He has no vocal cords! I also have no idea where that big eye in the center of his body came from. I think he does these things just to annoy me.”

“Bleh,” said Orby.

“Watch your tone, buddy,” I warned him with a raised finger.

“Bleh,” he said, more quietly.

“You still didn’t answer my question, Kyler,” Cross said as she stared at my sentient blood orb. “What are you going to do with that?”

“It’s more like what Orby is going to do for us,” I corrected her. “And what that will be, is getting to the source of this murder.”

“Aren’t we standing in it?” she asked.

“Nope!” I declared. “This room was where the killing was intended to be announced to the world. The actual scene of the crime had to be somewhere else. Somewhere far more discrete.”

“I fail to follow your logic,” Cross said, frowning. “Could you explain yourself, please?”

“Just think about it,” I said. “These are the diamonds, one of the wealthiest and best protected areas in the city. The level of security here is first-rate. That alone would make it extremely difficult to plot and carry out an assassination. Alexis was also an S-rank hunter. He’d hardly go down without a fight, would he? Which makes it unlikely the event happened here. No, this place was intended to be the epilogue to his story. But only the killer would have known.”

The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

“But he called you shortly before dying,” Cross insisted.

“No, he spoke to me, shortly before being discovered,” I said. “That’s a different thing entirely.”

“Meaning what?”

“If Alexis didn’t die here, then does that mean he came here because he was dead?” I asked. “He kept saying he didn’t want to do it. Do what? Maybe he didn’t want to do anything at all. Maybe at the very moment he was being forced to contact me, existence itself had become an unbearable hell?”

As I spoke, Orby floated to the late Alexis Norus’ body. Then from his sides, sprang numerous tendrils which swept over the corpse, gently combing over Alexis before pausing at a strange slit that had been made just above his navel. Orby’s tendrils then burrowed inside the wound to continue their search, until they came across something which they pulled free.

Orby then drifted down to my waiting hand and placed the object, a glittering violet crystal on my palm.

“Good job,” I said, pleased by the results. I then patted him on what I assumed was his head, before turning to Cross to hand the item over. “Ta-dah.”

“What is this?” she asked.

“A soul gem, if I’m not mistaken,” I replied. “The filthiest black magic imaginable. I recommend not making prolonged contact with it even if you are wearing gloves. Hey, have you got any hand sanitizer in any of those pouches? I think I could use a little myself.”

“A soul gem,” Cross said excitedly. “Holy shit, are you suggesting—”

“There’s nothing to suggest, Elphie,” I said impatiently. “Locked room mysteries are always a misdirect. Alexis was killed somewhere else, and his body was piloted here through that gem. You get it right? This was the deed of a—”

“A necromancer,” Cross said before swearing in frustration. “Fuck! There’s a necromancer loose in Gardenia!”

“It sure seems like it,” I said with a grim nod. Then I shrugged and said, “Well, good luck with that,” before turning to leave.

“What? Hey! Where are you going?” Cross demanded to know.

“Uh, I’m going home. I just proved my innocence, didn’t I?” I informed her. “I don’t want anything else to do with this.”

“The issue isn’t resolved yet, Mr. Resolver,” Cross said angrily. “There’s an S-rank killing aberrant walking the streets of our city! A fucking soul thief! You can’t just reveal that to us and then take your toys and go home! Not until we have that creature’s head on a pike!”

I had to suppress a shudder at her use of the word aberrant. It struck a little close to home. It was a term used by society to describe hunters whose unique classes made them too dangerous to be left alive. Rare mistakes made by their beloved system that produced uncontrollable killers that were closer to monsters than actual human beings.

I suppose you could see why I didn’t like people using that word anywhere I was nearabout.

It made me a bit nervous.

There were quite a few aberrant types out there. Most of them were normal classes that had a wire or two crossed that forced them to deviate. Like beast masters who felt compelled to hunt down their fellow man alongside their pack. Or telepaths who fed on the minds of their victims.

There was even a case of a young girl who could teleport her mind into the bodies of animals. One afternoon, while she was playing in the web of a pretty garden spider, it had used her body to stalk her babysitter and bite her to death.

Yeah. Fun.

But of all the aberrant types to exist, the one that filled the world with the most anxiety was undoubtedly the dreaded Necromancer. It seemed there were no benefits to allowing someone to live if they had the ability to kill and control the bodies of their victims. Especially since it granted them so much pleasure to use their powers.

You’d probably think that because I was a vampire, I’d be sympathetic to the plight of such unfortunate outsiders. You would also be completely wrong. I loathe those creatures. All vampires do. In my original world, necromancy was a dark magical art that required tremendous self-discipline and years of training and study to master. And even then, there had never been one who didn’t eventually succumb to madness.

No matter what their original intentions were when they began walking their path, all necromancers eventually transgressed against the darkness. And in turn, the darkness despised them.

It was a doomed pursuit, a bleak road followed only by the arrogant and the damned. The chaos they always left in their wake was regrettable and inevitable.

Fools.

My sympathies weren’t improved by the knowledge that in this new world, necromancers were occasionally created by the system against their will. What of it? Plague viruses were also born without sin, but the world would still benefit from their eradication. Some may view a vampire taking this view as being hypocritical, but that was their ignorance to bear.

As a vampire, I may desire your blood at the cost of your life, but your life is the only thing I can take from you. I may be able to transform you into a thrall but keeping you that way requires your willing cooperation. Raising someone as a fellow vampire can’t be coerced either; the magic infusing the ritual won’t allow it. And ghouls can only be created from dead bodies, where the spirit has already departed.

Necromancers steal souls. That is an indecency no vampire can ever commit.

Yeah, I was done with this one.

“I’ll send you my bill later, Cross,” I said brusquely as I made my way down the stairs.

Before leaving, I used [Mesmerize] to erase her memory of Orby as well as our conversation about my enhanced senses. Now that talks of aberration had begun, I didn’t want anything kicking around in her head that would make her suspect me of being anything other than a selfish coward.

“Don’t walk away from this,” she insisted. “For whatever reason, Lord Alexsis still called you! Why would the killer make him do that?”

“Just find yourself a hunter with a decent quality psychometry skill,” I said to her, having grown gradually exasperated by her insistence in keeping me around. “He’ll be able to find your target just by touching that gem. You don’t need me anymore.”

“Kyler, you’re still involved with this. Please, just work with me—"

“You know, I’ve been thinking,” I said, cutting her off before she could speak any further. “Gardenia has been wonderful and everything, but I still haven’t seen Good Harbor or True York. Aren’t I denying myself an experience by sticking around here? It might be time to pull up stakes and see what’s cracking up north. What do you think?”

“You really don’t want to know what I’m thinking right now,” Cross said, her voice heavy with scorn and disappointment.

“Well, thanks for being polite then,” I said amiably. “I wish you the best of luck with your hunt. Go get them, Valkyrie! May I have a ride home now?”

Cross glowered at me in reply, before taking a deep breath to relax herself. Then she summoned the A-ART that had carried me here earlier. “Don’t speak to anyone of what you’ve learned today. And don’t leave town before this is resolved,” she said to me sternly before closing the passenger door and walking away.

“I wouldn’t dream of it, Elphie,” I murmured to myself as I leaned back in my seat.

__

The evening’s events had caused me to lose my appetite by the time I returned home. All I felt like doing now was taking a shower and getting some sleep. I was in no mood to speak with anyone else.

“Kyler Evans?” called out a stranger’s voice as I was searching my pockets for the key to my office. I turned to look and saw that a customized street transport had pulled up on the curb. From it, three people-shaped cement blocks of muscle in nice suits exited. Two of them guided me by my shoulders toward the vehicle, while the third politely held the door open for me.

Once I was inside, the transport quickly pulled into the street and began speeding away to who knew where.

“Uh, good evening?” I said to the large strangers guarding me.

“Hey,” said one of them.

“Any place in particular you’re taking me?” I inquired.

“Your brother wants to talk to you,” said another one.

“Really?” I asked in mild surprise.

“Yeah,” he said before falling silent.

Huh. I wasn’t expecting to hear that.