Chapter 11: Traces

  “You looked into the abyss, and instead of it looking back, you blinked”

  Abel said concisely, his gun raised as he tilted his head.

  “The fuck does that mean?”

  “It means, you're going to tell me everything you know” Abel replied with a cold voice and an icy glare.

  Terry shuddered on hearing him speak.

  “Or was it when the when the Abyss looked at you, but you blinked” The officer said offhandedly as he looked away for a moment.

  Terry saw his distracted gaze. He saw this brief moment of distraction as an opportunity to make a turnaround.

  He flung himself off the ground and tried to sweep his leg across Abel's right ankle.

  But the officer suddenly turned and lifted his right foot, before sending it down with a thud.

  Followed by a loud crack.

  ‘Shit, it was a trap’

  Abel had left himself wide open, before delivering a swift blow to Terry's ankle.

  The pain rushed into Terry's brain, washing over his nerves and synapses.

  He screamed in agony as he grabbed his ankle.

  “Fuuuuuck!!! My leg!!!”

  Abel smiled as he watched him squirm.

  At least I didn't have to shoot his ankle out

  Just as he thought this, something caught his attention.

  At the corner of his eye, right on the wall close to one of the unconscious men, he thought he saw a figure.

  His senses trembled as his body shook in response.

  He lifted his gun towards the direction where he saw the figure, but noticed that it had vanished.

  “Who's there?” He spoke with a commanding voice, expecting someone to walk out.

  But no response came. Only the groaning and the pained growling of Terry could be heard.

  ‘Am I hallucinating or something?’ Abel thought as he grabbed onto Terry's jacket lapel.

  “Ok spill Terry, who hired you to jump me?”

  “The fuck I tell ya!” Terry answered with a defiant gaze.

  Just then, multiple footsteps could be heard rushing from down the alleyway. Soon the figures of Michelle and Alberto with some officers rushed from behind the curb.

  “Freeze!!!” Michelle called out as she pointed her gun to Abel's back. He turned to face her, giving her a cold glance.

  “Inspector Lucien? Are you alright… sir” she stuttered as she lowered her weapon. In her mind, she thought of how bad his situation was. She even expected the worst case scenario.

  Alberto on the other hand nodded quietly in respect. He too wasn't sure whether Lucien would be able to buy time. But seeing the current scenario, as well as the unconscious bodies littered around, he could figure out that this inspector from the Royal forces was anything but ordinary.

  The other four officers that followed behind were stunned, some wincing at the sight.

  He had taken five grown men down without actually killing anyone.

  “You can stop staring. Take the rest to a holding cell, but this one…” he pointed to Terry “Is mine!”

  Terry shuddered, his eyes dilated and his teeth chattered…

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  What is he going to do to me?

  ***

  The sun set slowly in Belmont, activity in the West and North dwindling, whilst the East and South began to awaken begrudgingly.

  Like a beast stirred from its long slumber.

  At South Frigate Avenue, at the borderline between the East and the South borough, everything seemed different.

  It was quiet and abandoned, as it always had been since the great fire.

  A figure dressed in street clothes with green eyes nonchalantly walked towards the abandoned factory area without a care in the world.

  The figure stood just outside of Begambo’s hideout, scanning the area from behind a stall that had just closed up shop.

  His gaze gleamed, his emerald eyes glowing as he scouted the front entrance for any one standing guard.

  “No one? That's new!” The figure spoke as he walked towards the stone fencing.

  In one clean jump, he leaped and somersaulted over the wall cleanly.

  His jump feeling almost unnatural, almost as if he was floating

  On landing, he made a quick dash towards one of the warehouses, stopping just outside.

  His eyes gleamed again, but this time, his face scrunched into a deep frown, showing his displeasure.

  Everything seemed normal in the physical sense, but his supernatural vision showed otherwise.

  An ominous aura of Blood and Death.

  The figure opened the door into a dark room. With a snap of his finger, an orb of light was birthed out of thin air, illuminating the room.

  What he saw confirmed his suspicion.

  Bodies.

  All dead…

  And brutally mangled at that.

  The bodies of the Maceratti gang stained the warehouse with their blood and viscera. It looked like a wild beast had run in here and butchered everything in sight.

  No person had all their limbs intact, some didn't even have their heads, others half their skulls.

  To the regular person, one would be frozen in shock. To the faint in heart, one could go into seizure in seeing this brutality.

  But the figure seemed unfazed. He took off his cap and sighed, revealing that it was Raphael.

  He'd done his own separate investigation, finding clues that led him to the Maceratti gang, which were the prime suspects for the kidnappings.

  He'd hoped that this was much of a supernatural event than it was said to be. After all, a grade 3 event usually meant high level occult activity, or the presence of a strong Transcendent cultist.

  But now, this confirmed it. No sane human would perform such brutal acts to his enemy. Or at last, no normal human had the physical ability to do so.

  He walked up to a corpse that was torn in half. He placed his hand on his forehead, spreading his fingers over his eyes. Then with a soft and ethereal voice, he whispered a prayer.

  “Mother Mihira, Mother of Shadows and Keeper of the Unseen and Unobtainable, I beseech in your name, divine protection and insight from the Realm of Spirits. May I know no corruption, or be swayed by guile”

  Suddenly, a magic circle formed right under the man's head, his eyes gleaming as the corpse hummed in agony.

  This was a spell used by Spiritist and Spirit mediums. It allowed one to communicate with the remnant spirit of the deceased, as long as he or she hadn't been dead for a long time.

  The man slowly coughed before groaning. Raphael saw this as a sign, as his green eyes gleamed and he opened his mouth.

  The language that came out wasn't one that humans could discern, but in essence he asked.

  “Who killed you?”

  “I… don't know… so sudden… we… playing ch..checkers… then… Pain… Pain!!!”

  Raphael hummed as he deactivated the spell, placing his palm on his aching head. The downside of talking to the dead was that it gave one a slight headache. That was the price to pay for the goddess protection. If he didn't have it, it would be easier to communicate, but it would also make it easier for him to be corrupted by outer and unknown forces.

  Corruption was one of the major things a Spiritist feared the most. It could happen without prior knowledge.

  He looked across the room. Over thirty bodies lay there. Then he looked across to a room that had its door slightly ajar.

  “That must be Begambo's office!” He said to himself as he walked by the blood and gore, unfazed and unmoved.

  He opened the door slightly, taking heed not to fall into a trap. Once he noticed that the coast was clear, he entered the room.

  He was greeted by a headless corpse, or to correctly put it; A corpse holding his head in his hands.

  It was Begambo…

  ***

  Abel, Alberto and Michelle were all in a carriage, quietly observing the outside world.

  No one spoke to anyone. Alberto was always quiet and brooding, Abel ‘Lucien’ didn't want to speak too much and accidentally give away his identity, whilst Michelle seemed to be deep in thought.

  Her mind was turmoil as she stole glances at Inspector Lucien who sat next to her.

  She tried to figure him out, but he seemed so distant. What even made her fear him more was how he could handle taking on armed gangsters unarmed.

  ‘Is this the strength one needs to be a part of the Royal Forces?’ she thought as she put herself in the inspector's shoes.

  If she was in his place, she wasn't sure she'd take out that many people in such a short amount of time, without getting injured.

  Most likely she might have had to put one or two persons down.

  But he did so without killing anyone in such a tight space.

  Thanks to him, the investigation had moved forward speedily. Terry had snitched about the person who hired him to take him out, and currently, with a large force of officers, they were headed to their hideout.

  Soon, they got to South Frigate Avenue, where they alighted. The officers that came with them were about twelve, all armed with rifles and one of them with a steam machine gun.

  They slowly made their way into the warehouse region, surrounding the entrance.

  Noticing no guards in the front, they moved into the vicinity, surrounding the door.

  “We go in on three,” one of the officers said quietly. The others nodded as they lifted their weapons, prepped and ready. One of the officers placed his hand on the door, while another signalled with his fingers

  One…

  Two…

  Three…

  The door was flung open as they all rushed in….

  “Freeze this is the…” the lead officer announced, but the rest of the words stopped dead in his throat.

  “By Helios’s Flames… what... is THIS?” He exclaimed.

  What he and the others saw gave them a fright they would never forget…