Chương 200: 189. Parasite

I got up the next day with the autopsy on my mind. The whole procedure was slightly annoying, as I couldn't stick my nose into everything without documentation and permits being signed. I didn't want to fuck up Q'Shar's whole grand plan to connect with the FBI, but having to ask for permission wasn't my favorite thing. I shrugged off the slight irritation and began dressing for the occasion. That meant choosing my robe. I yearned for the moment when I could just run around in my full ensemble.

After a late breakfast, I received a call from Rey saying that he would pick me up on his way to the autopsy. When I went outside, I noticed something strange. I was usually the last person to be picked up when someone offered, as I lived relatively close to the SID New York bureau, but today the car was completely empty. I got in, settling into the front seat of the SUV, and turned to the policeman—or rather, now an FBI agent—with raised eyebrows.

"So what's the occasion?" I asked.

"I wanted to talk one-on-one," he replied, slowly choosing his words.

"Okay. Talk, then." Rey looked at the road for a few seconds before speaking.

"Why didn't you just kill that creature yesterday?" he asked.

"Because that's not what they're paying me for."

"You could have just shredded it with one of your spells."

"I could, yes." I could see him reach under his jacket, where his weapon was. I stayed still, not raising any shields, as he pulled out a magazine for his standard-issue pistol.

"You were interested in those," he said, waving the thing at me.

"I was," I said, not reaching out for it.

"What do you want for it?"

"Well, if a thing like that ever jumps onto me, I would appreciate it if it were shredded, not just played with." I smiled.

"Going behind the FBI's back. Risky play."

"I just lost a bullet," he said with a shrug, taking his hands off the steering wheel to pop one of the magical projectiles from the magazine and loaded a normal round on top.

"Ooh, not afraid they are listening? Tapped our phones? What if Marvin's hiding in the glove compartment?"

"Mine's turned off. They haven't tapped yours yet," he said without a hint of hesitation or humor. I tilted my head, this time in genuine surprise. I took the bullet from his hand. It was an interesting thing. The casing was made of some kind of material imbued with magic. It was an enchanting technique using substances capable of storing and releasing mana.

The technique bypassed the need for space to draw rune circles, but it was also limited by the quality and amount of said material, unlike circles, which could do much more depending on their author. Still, this would actually be a problem against a shield spell attuned for physical attacks, as the magic seemed to help the piercing power. And most of all, it could injure opponents with no physical bodies.

"Nice work," I said.

"Mind if I keep one?"

"Be my guest," he said.

"Need a reason to fire that?" I asked with a smile.

"No, thank you. For now…"

"Mhm. So… whose side are you really on?"

"Mine, my family's," he answered without hesitation.

"Okay… How do I get in deeper with the FBI?" I asked straight up to see how far he was willing to go.

"Are you looking for advice or blackmail material?"

"Which one are you willing to provide?"

"Advice." His answer was firm. So, a man willing to go far for his people, but with a hard line.

"Advice is always helpful."

"If you want to scratch the FBI's back, you need to give them a case that will better Elias's standing with the upper echelons." I frowned at his words. It was both obvious and kind of hard to do, as the SID wasn't exactly a normal FBI division.

"Normally, the way you get in their good graces is public cases," Rey continued.

"Something for the media. They all think of running for mayor, governor, hell, sometimes president. So they will go far for a case with good publicity." I immediately saw the issue.

"SID is a secret division."

"Yes. That's why they grow so slowly, even if they solve some impressive cases that only they can solve. There is no political power behind them—well, not in the eyes of the voters."

"For now," I added.

"For now," Rey echoed, giving me a glance.

"So if not publicity, then a case involving someone in power. Some good old gratitude."

"Yes," Rey said.

"But not just anyone can know about the division. Even if they solve it, anyone without clearances won't learn who did the job. So you need someone with both political pull and clearance to the SID's existence. And a case they can spin for themselves and their careers." I smiled at him and then looked straight ahead. We spent the rest of the drive in silence and, after finally picking up Josh, drove to the hospital where the autopsy would be carried out. We were led into the basement, where we met Filip and Marvin.

After a few minutes of small talk about what was going on in everyone's lives, the rising prices and essential items like toilet paper and canned food becoming harder and harder to buy, the doctor finally came. He was an older gentleman with thick circular glasses and a stern-looking face.

'Michael' was the name on his uniform. Marvin, the doc, and I were given all the proper protective equipment, while the rest stayed behind the glass, kept out of the autopsy room. Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author. The first few hours were rather boring, as the man slowly but methodically disassembled the corpse, documenting everything from the contents of the stomach to the weight of the heart.

Finally, after everything else was properly written down and photographed, it was time for the skull. Now, with the man's aura entirely gone, I could feel magic radiating slightly from his head. The surgeon cut around the skull with a saw and removed the skullcap, exposing the brain. He was about to lean closer to continue, but I stopped him.

"I wouldn't do that," I said. Michael looked at me with confusion, but before he could say anything, Marvin spoke up in a worried tone.

"What is it?"

"There's something in his brain. A bit deeper in the tissue, I think. Something that might be dangerous," I said. The doctor nodded and, taking a long surgical tool, began to delicately prod the brain, trying to find anything hidden in there. Then, suddenly, I could see his face scrunch up. I moved closer, looking at what he was staring at. And I, too, was confused.

"What is that?" I asked the specialist.

"It looks like a cyst," the doctor said, clearly unsure of his own words.

"A large one, very deep, right in the middle between the hemispheres. It was pressing on his brain the whole time." That was all medical, but the issue was that I could feel magic coming from said cyst.

"Can you remove it?" I asked. He shook his head.

"Not intact. I could cut into—""Can't cysts carry diseases?" Marvin cut in.

"They can, but this one looks to be parasitic in nature. Like a tapeworm." I looked at the doctor before asking, "So what's the protocol in situations like that?"

"Well, usually, we leave it intact and cremate it with the body. Why?"

"And if it's evidence?" I pressed on.

"What, the cyst?"

"Yes." As I said that, I gave a questioning look to Marvin, who caught on to my interest.

"I'll classify this as crucial evidence. You can remove it, even if you have to cut through the brain." The doctor looked at the man's exposed grey matter with a frown.

"You are aware that we still haven't figured out the cause of death. Cutting into the brain might mask it." Marvin was clearly taken aback by his words.

"Wasn't the cyst what killed him?"

"No. It might have pressed on the brain, caused hallucinations, psychosis, a whole range of symptoms, but this shouldn't have killed him," Michael explained, lightly pressing on the flesh around the cyst. I also looked closer at the growth. The man was right. It radiated an aura, but fleetingly, leaving a light, uncomfortable feeling in me, a telltale sign of mental magic, the nasty kind. The energy had the structure of an oily thing trying to slip through any crack into the mind.

This might have caused a number of symptoms beyond what the doctor suspected, but he was right—it wasn't deadly. And even worse, I had no idea what it was either. I was pretty sure I was looking at the source of the mental magic, but this wasn't anything I knew or had heard about before. Wielding magic through other beings was a thing, sure, but parasites? That was rather new. The cause of death was also strange. It looked like the effect of a withering curse, or a variation of one.

But they got the man dying on the cell camera, as he was in police custody, and it was rather sudden, taking barely half an hour, and he just died while laughing. The flesh was discolored, nothing the doctor would notice as it was constant throughout the body, but I could tell it was all ever so slightly too pale, a telltale sign of someone literally having the life strangled out of them.

"Look over the brain, do all the scans you need, and then cut into it," Marvin finally commanded. We waited around for the doctor to complete all the tests. Thankfully, the FBI card expedited the process, and we received the results in under an hour. And they all said the same thing. There were no irregularities beyond the cyst in the middle of the brain.

"Okay," the doctor finally sighed.

"The grey matter looks normal. We can cut it out."

"Don't puncture the sac, please," I said. He nodded and began cutting into the flesh as I watched over his shoulder with growing interest. The man was skilled, and after making a few incisions and removing parts of the grey matter, the entire sac became visible. The man picked up a syringe, rinsed the area with water, and immediately frowned.

"What is it?" I asked. For me, this just looked like a cyst, interesting from a magical perspective, and that was about it.

"This… those look like nerves and blood vessels," he said, his voice uncertain.

"And why is that so strange?" Marvin asked.

"Well, parasitic cysts are created by parasites either for their eggs or young. They can stick to flesh, but not merge with it. It's essentially a foreign body. But this." He used a scalpel to press around the cyst, where small red veins connected to it.

"This is tapped into the flesh like a tumor."

"So maybe it's just a tumor?" Marvin proposed.

"I… I don't know. I could cut into it to check," he said, then gave me a questioning look. I took a second to prepare my magic in case it activated some sort of spell, and then nodded at him. The man changed scalpels and, using a longer one, brought the blade closer to the growth. The blade sliced through the membrane easily. I readied myself for a counterattack, but instead of poison squirting or a demon materializing, what appeared inside were small white balls, looking awfully like…

"Are those…?" Marvin began, asking what was on our minds.

"Eggs," I finished his sentence, my eyes glued to the flesh. The thing looked like a tumor holding many parasitic eggs. The creatures inside them were the source of the magic.

"Can you cut open one of those?" I asked. Michael used a pair of metal tongs to pick one up, placed it in a small metal tray, and cut into it. A slimy, clear liquid spilled from the tiny ball, and in it, a small white worm became visible. It was still squirming on the tray.

"Parasite, in an egg in a cyst in a tumor," I said, my eyes glued to the small creature.

"Like a really fucked up matryoshka doll." I could see the doctor's eyebrows raise over the thick-rimmed glasses as he turned to me.

"Is that a worm?" Marvin asked, leaning slightly closer. A mistake. The moment he bent down, the thing coiled like a snake and shot forward, right toward Marvin's eyes. Pierce I fired the spell, catching the miniature creature in the air as Marvin fell backward. We heard a crash as my attack continued forward and went cleanly through one of the legs of the metal cabinet on which some of the cut-out brain matter lay, spilling the flesh onto the floor.

Thankfully, the sac was still inside the body, but now everything else was scattered around.

"Oh… oh, fuck," the doctor swore, before turning to me.

"What the…?" he asked, for the first time clearly out of it. I, on the other hand, was looking at the pieces of organ tissue strewn all around on the floor. An idea popped into my head.

"Were there any signs of a biopsy carried out on the guy?" I asked the doctor, who was still on the ground, in shock.

"What?" he asked.

"Biopsy," I repeated.

"Was this guy missing small pieces of his organs?"

"Well…" The man slowly picked himself up, surprisingly quick to regain his composure as he looked over the mess.

"Yes," he answered after a few seconds.

"But all of those were scarred over. Old. They couldn't have killed him." The scarring could have been done with a healing spell. But I now knew how he was killed. A curse using the pieces of all his organs. If blood could lead a spell to the target relatively well, anything cast using organs would be extra potent. If some sort of contract was involved, killing him in half an hour with a simple spell was doable. But that meant two things. One, he was an experiment to be thrown away from the very beginning.

Two, the method of killing deliberately didn't injure the body. Of all the curses possible with literal organs, this one didn't injure the flesh, and there were a lot of easier ways to kill by simple lethal injuries. Which meant a functional body might have been the desired outcome. What would the parasites do once they hatched? Would they just die without a living host? Or was the intact flesh meant for them… I turned to the peanut gallery looking at me with rather strange expressions from behind the glass.

"I'll do you the honor," I said loudly to them, "and write the report myself this time."