I

Dr Rees didn’t even know where to start with this one. The body splayed out on her medical slab was nothing short of peculiar. This was the seventh she’d seen of this particular type and she was no closer to understanding the cause of it. She had a backlog of cases to work through, but this was the only thing she could think about right now.

The doctor stared down at Mr Steven Morrigan. Fifty-nine years old. Divorced. Father of one. Now deceased. Your perfectly average man yet his death defied all reasonable explanation. The investigating officers found him in an undignified manner, face down in a pool of congealed viscera, and assumed he’d been the victim of a home invasion gone wrong.

Except from what they could tell there was nothing missing, and with no obvious injuries to account for the amount of blood. From all appearances he’d just flopped over and died while watching TV. The whole thing left the forensic team stumped. A home invasion was about the only explanation their brains could handle given the situation. A few of them had even needed to take a leave of absence to recover.

Mr Morrigan’s outsides looked like raw pork chop left to sit too long in the open air, while his insides were an enflamed red, but none of that was outside the ordinary. It was what wasn’t there that was the problem.

Being a pathologist, Dr Rees had seen her fair share of weird. Stuff so weird they’d had to keep it from the public, but this was one of the more shocking things she’d witnessed. It had to be a sign. Something wasn’t right in Hogarth and these were only the first tremors before all hell began raining down on them.

Hearing the roar of an engine, the doctor glanced up from her chart and looked out of the small window outside of her lab where an electric-blue motorcycle had just pulled up. Shortly after a man dressed in leathers with a motorcycle helmet tucked under his arm walked into the police station, which was separated from the pathology lab by a pane of half-frosted glass.

The visitor was much younger than she’d expected, early-twenties maybe, but the way he conducted himself in such a self-possessed and polite manner made him seem older. He was of a slim build, but looked solid, and carried himself in a way that suggested he might be a practitioner of martial arts.

If Dr Rees hadn’t been a good decade plus older than him she might have found him cute, with his square chin and earnest eyes. He glanced towards the lab when he was directed there by one of the officers, running his hand over his sandy, short-cropped hair in an attempt to neaten it. He knocked at the lab door and Dr Rees waved him inside.

“Hi, Dr Rees, I’m–”

“–Paul, I know. Harri told me to expect you”, the doctor removed her plastic glove ready to offer her hand.

“Of course she did…”, Paul grimaced, although he remained polite.

The doctor smiled, realizing she’d committed a faux pas, “I'm sure she was just trying to help, she mentioned this was your first time out on your own?”

“What else are sisters for?” Paul took a deep breath before smoothing his expression to one that was more dispassionate, “I’m more than qualified, I assure you–”

The doctor waved her hands to dismiss his concern, “Oh, I have no doubt. If you’re a Winaker I have every faith that you are exactly who I need on this”. While Paul looked relieved, there was a brief but awkward pause between them.

“Should we get started?” Dr Rees said, snapping on a fresh pair of nitrile gloves.

Paul followed her over to the body and began studying it dispassionately like it was any old object you could find at home, “Is this one of them? The unusual deaths?”

The doctor nodded her head, offering him a pair of gloves, but Paul refused them.

“And what makes you think it’s something supernatural?”

Rees raised her eyebrow and gestured into the body’s open chest cavity, “You tell me”.

Finally a reaction, as Paul leant forward for a look and recoiled, however, he recovered quickly as his brows knitted together with intrigue, “Hollowed out? Curious”.

“That's a word for it”, Dr Rees leaned against a counter as Paul picked up a pair of gloves, and without putting them on, used them to pick up a metal implement so that he could have a poke around.

“It's the seventh one we’ve had”.

Paul glanced up in surprise, “Seventh? Over how long?”

The doctor scoured her mind, “I think the first was about six months ago, but they began picking up speed over last few weeks. We’ve had three since the end of August, including this one”. Dr Rees walked back towards the body, “The EMTs said it looked like they’d vomited up their insides. I knew as soon as I heard that it was a case for the Winakers”.

Paul swallowed hard, giving her a timid smile, “Yes. We’ve had intel that there could be something new in the area. Something powerful”.

Dr Rees nodded her head, “So, what are we looking at here?”

Paul paled, “I’ve never seen anything like this, honestly”.

Dr Rees grinned, “Have I actually stumped one of the famous Winakers?”

“It can happen”, Paul allowed himself to smile as he straightened up, “It’s definitely rare, but we’ll have something buried in the archives, I’m certain of it. Can’t be a beastie in this dimension without one of us hearing about it”.

“You sound so much like your sister”, said Dr Rees, although intended as a compliment, she sensed she’d struck another nerve since Paul’s face dropped slightly, “Do you think you can narrow things down at all?”

Paul leaned forward and stared inside the body with narrowed eyes, “I suspect a demon, but it could be anything”, he gave Dr Rees a knowing smile, “That's what I'm here to find out”.

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II

Stolen story; please report.

A new rook on the chessboard, that was sure to create a headache. Braran was crouched by a low window, looking into the pathology lab after catching a scent of a man with a motorcycle. He followed him all the way to the city morgue, although now Braran saw the man without his helmet, he didn’t recognize him. Yet, he was throwing off an energy signature that Braran was certain he’d met before, but couldn’t recall when.

He called himself Paul, still not a name Braran was familiar with. Braran could hear them talking, their muffled voices just audible through the glass, about that fat old man laying open on the doctor’s slab. The body was like a tremendous black void, hollowed out of its organs, as well as any of its residual energies. Even after death, bodies had a vibration. An aura of potential that would allow their spirit to step back inside under the right circumstances.

That one in the morgue was like burnt coal. It was nothing more than an inert dummy, an empty husk no longer able to support life of any kind. A perfect vessel for reanimation. If Braran wasn’t mistaken, that looked like the handiwork of a necromancer, and he knew exactly which one.

There was a swoosh as something corporealized behind him. Braran glanced over his shoulder to see Jer’Giman standing there.

“A demon hunter? That could prove inconvenient”, Jer'Giman said dryly, he was picking dirt from under his long fingernails.

He was always in those red robes, like some a medieval King, but with a scaly face and hands. Though his species claimed to be descended from Dragons, Jer’Giman’s wide-set eyes and flat face read more like turtle. However, his sharp teeth and vicious temperament were enough to make Braran wary of him.

Braran narrowed his eyes, turning back to look through the window, “More of a minor set back, I’d say”.

“You’ve had a lot of those lately”, snarled Jer’Giman, “Deal with it. We don't need any more flies in the ointment”.

Braran glanced over his shoulder, “You worry too much, old man. That baby bird made waves the second he entered this town. He'll be dispensed with in no time”.

Jer’Giman bared his razor-sharp teeth, jagged needles filling his wide mouth, into what some might consider to be a smile. Yet, his lizard eyes were hard, “We can’t leave it to chance, you must be the one to dispense with him, Braran”.

Braran peered into the morgue once more, where the doctor and Paul were shaking hands, during which his jacket gaped open to reveal a large ceremonial dagger strapped under his arm. A chill rushed through Braran, but he kept the expression off his face as he turned back to Jer’Giman, “Consider it done”.

“You sound confident”, his teeth glistened.

“I am”, Braran stood up straight, still dwarfed by his master’s gigantic height, “I’m about to kill two birds with one stone”, he said before shimmering away.

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III

For early-September it was excruciatingly hot, at least inside that dirty, dusty abandoned Art Deco theater. Glen wasn’t sure why he’d decided to set up shop in such a disgusting and subpar environment, but it was doing him absolutely no favors. Nor that of his master plan.

The body on his alter absolutely reeked, innards squelching as his hand wriggled around inside of it. It was so much easier when you killed them yourself. He could hear Carolyn and that idiotic Ken doll shuffling about behind him and it was throwing Glen off his rhythm.

In a bid to help him concentrate, Glen stuck out his tongue and began feeling around inside the corpse as deep as his stubby little arm would allow, until he grabbed hold of something squishy and tugged. Holding the brown little kidney in his hand, he studied it under the lights.

Glen’s face dropped and he threw the kidney across the lobby with an irritated grunt, “These bodies aren't fresh enough!”

His automatons, who were dragging corpses they’d dug out of the nearby graveyard into a pile, froze in place and stared at Glen with blank expressions. The outburst wasn’t all that satisfying for Glen, knowing his thralls had neither the wherewithal to feel embarrassed, nor the intelligence to do better, rendering these beratings of his useless.

Glen rolled his eyes, “What do I expect from half-wits?”, but his thralls continued to stare at him expectantly, “Carry on!”

As his thralls began their hypnotic dance of dragging bodies back and forth across the lobby, Glen shoved the corpse onto the floor and floated another one from the pile onto the alter to replace it. This time it was a young woman, still dirty with soil, and hopefully no more than a few weeks old. She still had that waxy, embalmed look about her.

She’d have to do. Glen raised his fist ready to punch it into the new corpse–

“If I didn't know any better I might think you were trying to raise an army”, a voice purred.

Glen shrieked, whipping around to see a young man staring at him. He looked like the brooding type with those dark eyes and sharp cheekbones. Braran slinked across the lobby floor like a black cat, causing his casual clothes to ripple over his toned and effortlessly muscular physique. Glen hated him on sight.

“What’s it to you?” he said, narrowing his eyes.

Glen snapped his fingers to summon the male thrall to tackle Braran. Running at full pelt, that beautiful dummy slipped right through him and slid across the floor. The thrall sat upright with that irritatingly bemused look on his ridiculous dead face.

Braran rolled his eyes, before turning his gaze back to Glen, “Last I checked that goes against the terms of your agreement”.

Glen turned deathly pale and began backing away in terror, “No! I still have time. Jer'Giman... he can’t!”

“Relax, I'm not here to reap”.

Glen stared at him with uncertainty, something about this felt like a trick, “What do you want, then?”

“I’ve come to ask a favor of you.”

Glen guffawed, walking across to his alter and plunging his hand straight into the waiting corpse, “I’m done making deals with demons”. Glen grimaced, the corpse felt unpleasantly warm thanks to the sweatbox they were standing in.

“I’m not sure you understand me”, Braran moved to stand before the alter, for once pleased his sense of smell was dulled to things that existed in this dimension. Otherwise, he imagined the body odor pouring off the unwashed geek standing before him would be toxic. Braran smirked, watching the sweat drip from Glen’s sparse hairline as his hand thrashed around inside the corpse.

“What do you think is going to happen to you when you raise this little army of yours?”

Glen pursed his lips, holding his fouled hands up in the air like a surgeon trying to avoid contamination, “I really don’t have time to worry about that, Mr… what did you say your name was?”

“I didn’t”, Braran grinned, “These parlor tricks won’t be any match for a Death Dealer”.

“I've got to do something”, said Glen, “Jer'Giman wants my soul he's going to have to fight me for it”. Glen growled with annoyance, placing his hands on his hips seemingly obvious to the gooey viscera covering them, “These bodies aren't fresh enough!”

However, as Glen repelled the body across the lobby, he doubled over in sudden pain. Winded, Glen took a seat on his alter and sighed.

Braran moved around the alter, “He won't need to the rate you're going you'll burn out before he has the chance”, Glen looked haggard, there couldn’t be much time before the powers engulfed him. Not at the rate he was burning through them.

When Glen didn’t say anything, Braran began studying their surroundings. They were in the lobby of a long abandoned movie theater. Back in its hey-day it was probably quite a sight to behold, high ceilings and two golden staircases that curved up towards a mezzanine. There were marks on the floor from where the concessions counter once was, old boxes labeled “hot dogs” or “popcorn”.

“Is this really how you imagined things would be when you made that deal?” Braran moved towards Glen, edging his voice with a hint of empathy, "You holed up in a dirty old theater fearing for your life?”

“I did think necromancy would be a little more glamourous, yes”, getting to his feet, Glen attempted to float another corpse onto the alter, he eventually gave up and lifted one on with his hands instead.

“What if I told you I could get you power that actually belongs to you?” Braran could sense he’d caught Glen’s attention, “Not this bargain bucket borrowed magic that'll burn you from the inside out”.

Glen narrowed his eyes with intrigue, “You can do that? How?”

Braran shook his head, “Ah, ah, ah”, he wagged his finger, “First, the favor”.

Glen's shoulders dropped in annoyance, but he waved his hand, gesturing for Braran to go ahead with the pitch.

“There's talk of a new demon hunter in town. I need you to take care them.”

Glen frowned, “That's it? All I gotta do is take them out and I get my power?”

Braran nodded as he moved slyly around Glen, “If you take them out, you’ll not only get your power, but you’ll win back the right to your soul”.

Glen’s eyes sparkled with anticipation and he gave a grim smile, “Who's the mark?”

“…Norah Woodhouse.”