Around
5:00 A.M. Sr. Detective Leon Williams and his partner, Donna Hendrix, walked
into the Coroner’s office. A medical
examiner and a police officer were waiting for them when they arrived. Williams looked upon the victim of the
strangest death he’d ever been tasked to look into.
“The man has no less
than ten tumors,” the medical examiner said, “two in the brain, one in each
lung, one in the stomach, one in the skin, one in the kidney, and one in the
liver. They all appeared malignant. He also had two different types of blood
cancer.”
“So
he died of cancer then?”
“As
best we can guess,” the medical examiner said.
“So…
what do you think caused this, and why did you bring me here?”
“Frankly,
I’m not sure what caused it. My best
guess is some sort of carcinogen, but I don’t know of any around here that
could cause this many tumors in this many different places of this many
different types.”
“I
see. So do you think this is something
drug related? Is that why you had me
come here; to figure out what on the streets could have caused this?”
“No,”
the officer said. “Come with me.” Williams followed him next door to the
station, into a room with a television.
The officer turned it on and played security footage from a
hospital. A few seconds into the segment
Williams was shown, a dark spot appeared.
It seemed to emerge from one of the rooms and went into another. “The window to the room it just came out of
was shattered,” the officer said. From
there, the cloud of darkness toured multiple rooms. The movement was quick and the cloud seemed
to enter, linger for about ten seconds, and then leave quickly.
The
next one though, was different. The
cloud entered the room as usual, but seemed to stay for
quite a bit longer.
“Who
was in that room?” The detective asked.
“Only
one patient, Cherie Lambert,” the officer said.
“I
see. Do you have any idea why it might
have lingered in her room longer?”
“No,”
the officer said.
Detective
Williams kept watching the tape. The
cloud left that room, going out to the hallway.
It paused in the hallway. As it
was leaving, two security guards came into view. They began holding their noses as though
there was in intolerable smell in the hall.
The cloud then went into one final room.
It didn’t emerge.
“The
window in that room was also shattered,” the officer said.
“That
was… strange,” the detective said, “If I may ask, why are you showing this to
me? What does this have to do with the corpse?”
“The
patients in all of the rooms the dark cloud entered had previously been
suffering from late stage cancer. They
all appear to have gone into total remission.
There seems to be no trace of cancer in any of them.”
“I
beg your pardon?” Williams said.
“They’re
running a battery of tests to be sure, but there seems to be no hint of cancer
in any of them.”
“I
see… regardless, what does this have to do wi… wait, you’re not suggesting
that--”
“We’re
not suggesting anything,” the officer said, “but the cancers in the man you saw
in the Coroner’s office are identical to the ones which used to be in those
patients.”
“I
see... Tell me, is there any information
you have from anyone in that hospital?
The guards, the patients, anyone?”
“The
guards and the patients from the first and last rooms, who were awakened, by
the shattering of her window, all report smelling a horrible smell, like that
of a dead body,” the officer said, “and the patient from the first room
reported feeling a hand on her stomach before falling unconscious.”
“I
see,” Williams said, “Is that all you wanted to show me?”
“Yes,”
the man from the station said.
“So
this cloud goes into the rooms of cancer patients, and then later, all of their
cancers appear in this guy?” Williams asked.
“As
it would seem,” the officer said. “Would
you like to talk to the patients?”
“Yes,
and particularly to this Cherie Lambert.
The cloud stays in her room longer.
I’d like to know why.” Williams
paused for a moment. “I’d also like to
know if anyone else may have seen this black cloud, especially near our victim
here.”
“Alright,”
the officer said.
“Is
there anything more to show me?” Williams asked.
“No,”
the officer said.
With
that, Detective Williams and Donna Hendrix left the room.
“So,
do you have any idea what might be going on?” Donna asked.
“Yes,”
Williams said, “I think I do.” The
detective grinned, “And I think the way it lingered in the one girl’s room is
the key. Ask yourself, why might it
linger in there longer?”
“I’m
not sure,” Donna said.
“Neither
was I, but then I realized something.
What makes this so difficult is that the thing we’re looking at here
seems to be operating against the very laws of nature. It could be an angel, a ghost, a space alien
or an ethereal spirit. There were
various clues about its nature, the smell, the need to break windows, and the
hand one of the patients felt, but none of them are helpful when one doesn’t
know where to begin. There is, though,
one thing the spirit did which made a definitive statement about its nature. Some ethereal, supernatural force, or a
spirit alien to this plane, wouldn’t linger in one room longer than the others,
but perhaps, if a human is causing this, they would.”
“Why?”
Donna asked.
“Well,
the only reasonable possibility I’ve thought of so far is that whoever this is
has some special connection with this ‘Cherie Lambert.’ If this is the case, it is possible that he’d
take some special satisfaction in healing her.
From there it’s just a matter of figuring out whom of those connected
with her might do this.” Williams paused
for a moment. “Of course, I could be
entirely wrong. There are reasons I can
think of why a spirit might have attachments to a specific human, and why
they’d heal ten people, more than just Ms. Lambert, but far less than the
number of patients there, but between the entity’s need to break windows, the
hand, the fact that it retreated from the security guards despite seeming to
want to heal a great number of people, and the lingering in Ms. Lambert’s room,
the human explanation seems by far the most elegant.”
*****
Meanwhile,
Cody read through his tome. He had
nothing else to do as he stayed up all night.
He had just turned to the descriptions of some of the liches which the
book identified as being in Cody’s area.
“Kaburlduth
A Lich of Hatred. A
bigoted lich. He seeks to complete the
work of his fallen leader and bring destruction to those mortals he thinks
inferior. He is known to try to spread
his prejudices.
Ntullnarlth
A Lich of Reconstruction. A deluded lich. He seeks to restore his fallen empire to the
glory it once knew. He hates all of the
respects in which his world has left his empire’s ways behind.
Valthakar
A Lich of Abandoned Dreams. A cynical lich. He once fought to preserve life, but has
fallen into despair. He now merely
wanders about, making his way, not caring much for the struggles of others.”
Suddenly, his alarm
clock went off. Back when he slept, that
machine had been responsible for waking him up.
Now it merely served the purpose of telling him when he was expected to
be awake. He left his room and headed
towards the bathroom. He bathed, brushed
his teeth, and dressed for the day.
It
was Sunday, and he had to go to Mass.
The previous day’s events, particularly the part where he ripped a man’s
soul out of his body and ate it, had had a significant effect on his religious
convictions. On the other hand, there
was no way he was telling his mother, and if he did, that wouldn’t change her
mind about making him go.
After spending some
time waiting for the rest of his family, Cody left with them and got into the
bus to the nearest church. While he was on
the bus, a fear came over him that Christian iconography and sacramental
objects might end up having negative effects on him as they did on many
monsters of fiction. If that was the
case, he might freak out and reflexively spit out communion wine, or be reduced
to screams at the sight of a cross, and this would happen in front of
everyone. As he thought about it
further, he wished he hadn’t left his book at home. Then again, it wouldn’t exactly be
inconspicuous on this bus.
Once they got off the bus they
entered the Church. They were dressed in
their finest clothes. Cody experienced
no ill effects from the holy water when he touched it as he entered. Some of the art made him want to look away,
but that was only because it was beautiful, not because it was religious. Confession was difficult. The priest could sense that something was
wrong, but didn’t realize Cody was omitting some of his sins.
As
he left the confessional to go to his seat, his mother entered. A few minutes later, the mass started. The opening hymn was a little awkward, given
that he now knew the words to be false.
In addition, beautiful music seemed to have the same effect on him as
beautiful images. What he once found
pleasing, he now found revolting. The
readings went fine. Biblical texts also
had no negative effects on him. The
homily was nothing special. After giving
the money he had brought, he waited for communion. The time to take it eventually came, and he
did, to no ill effect. After the closing
hymn, he and his family left to the parking lot. They headed down to the bus stop.
After
arriving home, Cody sat down with his family to watch the morning news. He waited a few stories in to see the
coverage of his actions at the hospital.
“In
other news,” the newscast began playing the footage from the hospital security
camera as the anchor spoke, “a strange event occurred last night when what
witnesses are describing as a ‘shadowy blob’ was seen, both by security cameras
and witnesses, wandering around a Goldfalls hospital. The blob can be seen in this footage,
navigating the hallway and entering and exiting patient’s rooms. Stranger still, the patients occupying them
seem to have experienced sudden remission of symptoms. Medical experts refuse to comment. The Goldfalls police department has issued a
request for tips from any person who has seen this blob.”
“So
it’s not just on the camera?” the co-anchor said.
“No,
apparently guards at the hospital saw it,” the anchor who had given the report
replied.
“Spooky.”
“Yeah,
I know, right. Anyways, coming up after
the break--”
Cody’s
mother muted for the commercials.
“What
do you think that is?” asked Cody’s father.
Cody
said nothing as they conversed. That the
news report hadn’t mentioned Cody’s victim was a relief. This might mean that they hadn’t found the
body. Cody knew it had been a mistake to
just leave it there where it would be found eventually. He should have used his power to induce decay
to make the corpse rot away so it couldn’t be discovered. Cody decided to make a point to check for it
that night, and if it was still there, get rid of it. If not, he knew it wouldn’t be hard for the
police to realize that the body and the event at the hospital were connected,
and Cody would need to be on his guard.
*****
Detective
Williams and Donna Hendrix had just been contacted about a witness who had come
forward, claiming to have seen the cloud.
She had asked to be anonymous, but was nonetheless willing to provide
testimony. The two were escorted to the
room where the witness was waiting.
Williams had asked to perform the interview himself.
“Hello
there,” Williams said.
“Hello,”
the witness said. “I’m here about the
black cloud.”
“You
saw it?” Williams asked.
“Yes,
in an alley,” she said, “last night as I was walking home from my job as a
waitress.”
“Can
you tell me the story?”
“Yes. I was walking in an alley, on the way home,
when a man approached me. He pointed a
gun at me and demanded the contents of my wallet.”
Williams
noticed a change in her mannerisms right as she mentioned the mugging. Was she lying to him? He suspected so, but couldn’t quite tell.
“Just
before he was able to shoot me, I saw the cloud, and then was enveloped in
it. I heard him being tackled away from
me.”
“Tackled
away from you?”
“Yes,
I think that’s what it was.”
“And
then what?”
“I
ran away. I didn’t see what happened to
the man.”
“Is
there anything else you can tell me?”
“Yes,”
the woman said, “there was a horrible smell.
It smelled like a rotting body.
It seemed like it was coming from within the cloud.”
“I
see.” The detective pulled a picture of
the victim from earlier out of his pocket.
“Tell me, is this the man who tried to mug you?”
The
woman looked at the picture for a moment.
She seemed to be studying it carefully.
If she had been giving a false tip, as people sometimes did, she’d have
said yes instantly. “Yes. That’s him,” she eventually said.
“I
see.” Detective Williams wasn’t sure
what to make of this. According to this
woman, the cloud had thwarted an attempt to mug her. If this was true, it had very interesting
implications. Still, Williams had sensed
dishonesty in some of her words. He
tried to think of what might have happened with her and the black cloud. Had she been raped? No, she didn’t seem to have suffered the
correct amount of psychological damage from the incident to qualify as a
probable rape victim. Why else wouldn’t
she want to tell him about a crime?
Perhaps
the criminal had been a member of a street gang, and she feared retribution for
confessing the true nature of his crime?
There was a way to test that.
“If
I may ask, do you believe the man had any connection to organized crime?”
The
resulting facial expression was more than enough to confirm this idea.
“No…”
she said, “not at all.” She was lying,
it was clear. That fact gave Williams
all of the information he needed, so he didn’t press the issue.
So
the perpetrator had targeted a criminal; one perpetrating a crime in progress,
no less. This was quite interesting
indeed. If this targeting was
deliberate, it had some very interesting implications. It painted this killer as a vigilante.
As
he thought, a narrative formed in his mind.
What if, somehow, someone close to Cherie Lambert had found a way to
cast this black cloud, and move illnesses from one person to another? What might an average person do with such a
power? Perhaps they might heal a loved
one and move their illness to a criminal?
If this was true, it was probable that the healing of the others was
just a decoy, meant to prevent the significance of Cherie Lambert from being
recognized. Then again, their targeting
a criminal, and being patient enough to actually wait for a crime in progress,
showed that this person had at least some sort of moral foundation. Perhaps they healed so many because they did
not want to waste an opportunity to save more people?
“About
when did this happen?” the detective asked, “I know you said last night, but
what time?”
“Around
12:30 I think,” the woman said, “I’m not entirely sure. It was about twelve-forty when I
got home.”
That’s
not what Williams had expected. If that
time was accurate, that did not give the culprit very long to search for a
crime in progress. Did this mean that
the person had the power to sense crime?
No, it was more likely that they were stalking the streets for a victim,
happened to come across a criminal, and choose them. There was a large difference between
patiently waiting for a criminal to transmit your loved ones’ cancer to, and
merely targeting one because you happened to run across a crime in progress.
Either
way though, there was something else strange about this. Why was the perpetrator confident that they
would not face harm in the process of tackling a criminal? Either Williams was wrong and this wasn’t a
person, or their powers must extend beyond the ability to move diseases around
and cast a shadow. That or they had poor
judgment.
“Thank
you mam,” Williams said, “That’s all I needed to hear.” The detective excused her before
getting up to
leave the room.
*****
Later
that day, Cody walked to the hospital where Cherie had been receiving her
treatment. His grounding did not
prohibit him from seeing Cherie, because his mother’s religion reckoned his
visits among the “corporeal works of mercy” which she did not want to forbid
him from. Cody’s mother didn’t know that
Cherie had been among the ones healed.
As
Cody entered the hospital and approached Cherie’s room, he felt a mix of
delight and shame. Delight, because he
would get to see Cherie well for the first time, and shame, for what he had
done to bring it about.
Cody
arrived at her room. He set his bag
down. He thought of fiddling his cube,
but decided against it. Now that it
housed his soul it was probably best not to use it, as such use would risk
damage to it.
“Hello
Cherry,” Cody said.
“Have
you heard?” she asked, smiling.
If
he was right about what she was talking about, he didn’t need to hear. He didn’t need to hear because he himself had
ripped a man’s soul out and— Cody made himself focus. This is about the happy parts of what he’d
done, not the unpleasant ones. Now, if
he had not been responsible, he wouldn’t have known, so he did his best to
lie. “Heard about what?”
“I
can see through you,” Cherie said, “who told you?”
Darn
it! Cody was a terrible liar. “Told me what?” he asked, trying his best not
to have his lie detected.
“What’s
with you?” Cherie sighed, “Well, did you see the news report of the thing that
broke into this hospital?”
“Yes.”
“Well,
I was one of the people it cured.”
Cody
put on his best surprised face. “That’s
amazing! So there’s no sign of cancer?”
Cherie
sighed, unconvinced by Cody’s poor attempts at acting, but not bothered very
much by it. Perhaps she thought he
wanted to give her the pleasure of revealing it herself. “Yes.
The doctors are running some tests, but they say that they can’t even
tell that I ever had cancer in the first place.”
“Cherry
that’s wonderful!” Cody did alright with
that one, because he wasn’t lying.
“Isn’t it?” Cherie said, “The
doctors are double checking the test results now, and they even say I’ll get to
go to school if all of the tests come back negative again.”
This was wonderful! Cherie was happy, truly happy, for the first
time in months. As he looked at her
face, Cody was the happiest he’d been in months too. Cherie had been given a chance to live the
life she deserved. Cody had taken on a
huge burden to give her that, but at least that one good thing had come out of
all of this.
*****
That
night, it was time for Cody to go hunting again. “Hunting,” he thought, “hunting for a human
soul to dev-- FOCUS!” Cody knew he
needed to keep his mind on the task at hand.
He had read about most of the spells common to all liches in the book,
though he had not had the opportunity to test most of them.
Tonight,
he had to be smart. He didn’t want to
waste an opportunity to heal another ten or so people of terminal illness, so
he would definitely hit a hospital, but he needed to be smarter about it so he
could avoid ending up on the news again.
For one thing, he had already waited until later at night. It was about 2:00 A.M. For another, he planned to hit a different hospital;
and not the cancer wing this time. He
also planned to check the alley he had been in last night to see if the body he
had left was still there.
He snuck out of his
window. He walked across his roof, which
was flat, and climbed off of it. It was
lucky for him that the dumpster was just the right size and height for him to
easily jump down onto it, and then from it to the ground. From there, he walked a distance away from
his house before transforming. He snuck
carefully into his target hospital, and, as he had last time, went into and out
of several rooms, tagging all of the illnesses he found along the way. Whenever he put his hand on any of them, a
list of their ailments, somewhat like a drop-down menu, appeared in his
mind. Most of the patients here seemed
to have ALS. He was able to tag the
degeneration that had already happened to the patients along with the
underlying disease.
He ran off and, after a
few false leads, was able to find a fear trail which was the result of an
actual crime. This time it was a
mugging. The two parties reacted as he,
shrouded in his veil, approached. Both
the victim and the mugger were paralyzed with fear. Cody quickly grabbed the mugger. The mugger screamed. Cody passed on the various instances of the
disease to him in order of severity. The
degeneration he had passed on caused the victim to fall to the ground. Cody scythed the man’s soul out, and ate it. He then placed his hand on the body and made
it rapidly decompose.
Cody next went to the
alley. He knew his way around the area
well enough to find the alley again. He
looked, and the body was gone. This probably
meant the police had found it. So Cody’s
actions were already being investigated for the murders that they were. Cody thought of turning himself in, but that
wouldn’t work out well. Any attempt to
jail him would lead to him becoming hungrier and hungrier until he couldn’t
stop himself from going on a rampage through the prison, devouring the souls of
prisoners and guards alike. Any attempt
to execute him would be futile unless he turned in the cube. As that possibility occurred to him, Cody searched
his mind for some reason it too was unacceptable. Well, the whole execution would need to be
carried out in secret. Cody’s very
existence had disastrous implications, and it would be a bad idea to reveal it
to the public. Still, such a secret
execution would be possible.
Cody tried hard to think
of a reason he couldn’t kill himself, or an alternative to doing so. He didn’t want to die, especially not if an
alternative existed. He thought as he
walked away, carrying his veil with him.
A few alleys down, he lowered it, took his normal form, crept back to his
house, and snuck back into his room. He
lied on his bed and thought. There were
no excuses to be had for what he had done.
He was responsible for his condition.
If he couldn’t find a reason to go on, he needed to make plans to do what
he had to. He got his book out, and
turned to the Q&A section.
“Can you think of any reason why I
can’t or shouldn’t turn my cube in to the police and have them smash it?”
“You can’t. Even if
you could, are you not doing more good than harm? So far as a lich, you’ve saved far more
people than you’ve killed.”
What?
“Wait, I can’t?”
“Liches were originally designed to serve the underworld
much more directly than they do today. Hence,
they, including you, are programmed not to be able to destroy themselves. You can risk your life, or even commit an act
knowing your destruction will result, but you cannot take any action with your
own death being your intention. This
would include any attempt to induce another to kill you.”
Well that was it
then. He couldn’t even kill himself. Cody closed his eyes and cried for the souls
he would be devouring for the rest of his life.
Criminals or not, he had no right to inflict that fate on them. Their misery would last for epochs, and it
would be entirely his fault. All he
could do was cry for them, and curse the monster he had become.
*****
The
next morning, detective Williams arrived at the station. He was approached by a police officer.
“Good
morning,” the officer said.
“To
you too,” Williams said. “Has there been
another murder?”
“Another
hospital was hit,” the officer said, “but we haven’t found another body.”
“And
the patients inside are cured as before?” Williams asked.
“Totally.”
So
the killer had struck again. It was
possible that he’d found a way around his need to move diseases between
patients. It was more likely that it had
simply occurred to him to dispose of the victim’s body.
“I
see,” Williams said.
The officer was
suddenly called away. He turned to see
another officer gesturing to him to approach.
“Hold on, I gotta go.”
“Alright,” Williams
said. The officer ran to the other one.
Donna
turned to Williams.
“So
what do you make of it?”
Williams
thought for a moment before speaking.
“That he has struck again is of great interest,” he said. “If he merely
desired to heal Cherie Lambert, he would have done it once and stopped there,
but he did not. I think he knew Cherie,
and I think that his first thought upon knowing he had this ability was to heal
her, but I also think that this person is generally willing to kill some people
for the sake of more.” Williams paused
for a moment. “If the victim here does
turn to have been a criminal though, that casts this person as some sort of
vigilante, wishing to move illnesses from those he thinks deserving of life to
those he does not.” Williams
yawned. He hadn’t had enough coffee that
morning. “By the way, if you don’t mind,
please assemble a list of persons close to Cherie Lambert. Don’t rule anyone out based on their age or
level of physical fitness. We have no
idea how this… whatever it is, works, and it’s possible that the figure moving
around is an avatar being controlled from a distance.”
“Alright.”
*****
Cody
sat in his room reading from his book.
He knew it would be lunch time soon.
It was starting late today, because his mother was behind on cleaning,
and was taking some extra time to get caught up. As he sat, he suddenly saw something appear
in front of him. He flinched and backed
away in surprise, dropping the book.
“What’s…
going on here…?” he heard. He had a
feeling that the words were coming from the thing in front of him.
“Uh…
Hold on. Let me ask,” Cody said in
reply.
“What
do you mean ask? Where am I? Why am I here? Who are you?
What was that… thing I
just went through?”
“Hold
on,” Cody said.
Cody
picked up the book and opened it to the Q&A section.
“Who
or what is that?”
“That is the first soul you ate. The process of its digestion is complete, and
that is what is left. He can communicate
with you telepathically. Only a creature
of the underworld can see him.”
Right,
that. Cody put his head down and took a
few deep breaths. His head still down,
he wrote another question in the book.
“I thought that I had no powers in
human form.”
“You cannot cast spells.
A few of your passive abilities, mainly your ability to see and hear things
normally hidden from humans, persist.”
“Will you please tell
me what’s going on? I’m kinda freaking
out here.”
Cody forced himself to
forget his shame and looked up. “I’m not
sure how to put this,” Cody said.
“Could you please just
give it a try? I’m kinda freaking out
about all of this.”
“Well… What’s the last
thing you remember that you consider ‘normal?’”
“Well I was in a
conversation with a woman who… owed me some money, when suddenly a cloud
enveloped us and--”
“That was me. I saw that you were about to shoot her, so I
tackled you away.”
“So how did I end up…
wherever I did, and why am I here now?”
Cody’s hands clenched
into fists, his face still turned down in shame. He took a deep breath. Without looking up at his victim, he said the
words. “I ate your soul.”
“You did what?”
“I swallowed your
soul. I have to in order to stay alive.” He spoke that last sentence more to console
himself than to console the spirit he had consumed.
“You… I… wait… would
that make that thing I just went through… what the hell man? Where do you get off eating people’s souls?”
“I have to,” Cody said,
still not looking up. “Sending myself
into a frenzy by starving--”
“You’d go into a frenzy
if you couldn’t devour enough souls?
Wow, I may have done some unpleasant things, but you… you’re a real
effing monster.”
Cody sat there for a
second. “I know,” he finally said.
Suddenly, his mother
called him downstairs for lunch. “I’m
coming,” Cody said. Cody knew that the
soul would not be able to refuse an order from its lich. He didn’t want to issue one though. Up until now, he’d nearly managed to pretend
that it wasn’t slavery if he didn’t make them do anything. Now though, he really, really wanted to make
the man go away. He struggled with
himself until he couldn’t take it anymore.
“Now, please go wandering around wherever you please, just don’t return
here until I’m done eating, okay?”
“Okay,” the soul said,
unable to resist his master’s voice.
Cody put his head back down and shed a tear. Eventually, he was able to regain his
composure and go downstairs.
*****
That
night, Kenneth Kurt Rogers sat in a lawn chair outside by his pool, reading by
the light of an ornate lamp. He lived in
the wealthiest suburb of Goldfalls, California.
It was nighttime. He read by the
light of a large lamp outside. As he
read, he thought he saw something out of the corner of his eye. He dismissed the sensation and continued
reading. Suddenly, he smelled a horrible
smell, like a rotten corpse. He put his
book down and looked around for the cause.
He couldn’t see anything. He
tried to continue reading. The smell
only grew more intense, until finally he couldn’t bare it, and tried to get up.
When
he turned towards the door into his house he saw the source of the smell. It was a horrifying being of remarkable
stature. It looked to be about eight
feet tall. It seemed to wear extravagant
robes, like those of a king, but they were dirty and tattered. Underneath them was what looked like a
walking corpse. It had ill-kept claws
for nails and was a deathly shade of brown.
The creature smiled, showing disgusting yellow teeth. Kenneth was sure that that smile was directed
at him.
Kenneth
dashed away in horror. He moved rather
quickly for a man of his weight, but in his hysteria, he forgot that the path
directly away from his door led to his swimming pool. He tripped at the edge of the pool, and fell
into the deep end. He tried to swim to
the ladder on the other side. Suddenly,
he felt cold, and couldn’t move his hand.
He looked down at it, and saw that the entirety of the pool’s water had
frozen into ice.
He
turned around. He saw the entity walking
toward him. He struggled to escape the
ice, screaming as he did, but the effort was futile. Soon the entity had raised his scythe. The instrument swept down, and passed through
Kenneth’s body, removing his soul. The
entity grinned from ear to ear as he swallowed it.
*****
A
few days later, Detective Williams held a press conference. By this point, the perpetrator had cured
forty-seven people, and presumably killed five.
Two more truthful witnesses had come forward, claiming to have been
saved from violence by the killer. The
existence of the first victim, and probable existence of the others, though
initially kept secret, had been released to the public.
“Detective
Williams,” one of the reporters said, “Is it true that all of the victims thus
far have been confirmed to be the perpetrators of crimes in progress at the
time of their killing?”
“That
the perpetrator intervened in their committing a violent crime has only been
confirmed for three of the five victims,” Williams said, “but it’s enough that
we can assume, unless evidence to the contrary is provided, that this is true
of all of them.”
“Sir,”
another reporter said, “it’s been said that the perpetrator is able to find
crimes in progress consistently within an hour of his hitting a hospital. Is this true, and if so, how is he doing so?”
“As
far as we can tell, it is true. We don’t
know how he is doing this. It is
possible that this person merely has a significant knowledge of the nature of
crime in the inner city. It is also
possible, given that he can cast a cloud of blackness and move diseases between
people, that he can sense crime somehow as well.”
“What
comment do you have on the religious and philosophical implications of someone
having these abilities?”
“None.”
“What
course of action do you recommend should one encounter this perpetrator?”
“Do
not try to interfere with his activities.
He is extremely dangerous, and the limits and nature of his power are
unknown. If you are in a hospital bed,
simply let him heal you. If you are
saved from a criminal by him, run away while he does his work. If you are in his line of fire, then try your
best to get to a public place. There has
been a case where someone was able to escape him by fleeing into a crowded
house. Make your move to flee as soon as
possible, so that you can be sure you escape before he can move the diseases to
you.”
“Detective,
what do you think of the name ‘Angel of Death’ being given by the press to the
perpetrator?”
“I
dislike it. We must not romanticize or
glorify this murderer by calling him an ‘angel.’ He is a serial killer, and that is all that
he is or ever will be. He has found a
way to move illness between people, and has decided that he has the right to
judge who is and is not worthy of life.”
“But
sir, if this person is stopping crimes, healing people of illness, and taking
criminals off the street, is he not a hero?”
“Most
certainly not. He is no more a hero than
a man who kills abortionists because he thinks them immoral. He is not a government official. He has not been appointed by any official
process. He is just a random person on
the street who has decided he knows better than the justice system which has served
this city for over a century. His
abilities do not grant him immunity from the law, and she shall make no
exception for him.”
