Chương 217: 205. Drown them properly

We drove in silence for a good hour with no interruptions to our little trip. We picked up my car at the gas station and decided to stop by my apartment for a debriefing. I was slightly upset that there was no car following us, no ambush prepared along the way. Kinda boring, but not entirely unexpected. I could see Ophelia had a rather sour expression on her face, her job having gone sideways probably not being the outcome she had hoped for.

I, on the other hand, spent the entire ride submerged deep in the river of my own thoughts, once again thankful for the low traffic at the late hour. I was almost sure the police trick was government or FBI-related. It didn't make sense for any mage clan to pull something like that and not follow it up with an attack. I called Q'Shar, I called Peter, and I even checked on Josh to make sure nothing was happening while I was away, and once again, everything was calm. It was an annoyance, to say the least.

Whether it was a dangerous one or not, I still wasn't sure. The cats not having anything concrete was slightly worrying, though. After the long drive, we finally stopped at my apartment to talk.

"So," I began as I closed the door behind Ophelia.

"What went wrong?" She exhaled slowly and then picked a chair to sit on as she thought, her face scrunched together, clearly hesitating with the answer.

"I should have made the approach quicker. We might have had time to at least try to get to the car with the target. And maybe hold the man until the cats prepare a different ritual site?" I shook my head lightly.

"No. The decision was the right one, and as we already established, the target and the ritual site are not hard to arrange. Leaving was fine."

"I should have… I don't know," she said, spreading her arms and letting them fall to her knees as she relaxed into the chair.

"Tell me, where did I make a mistake?"

"Okay," I began, tilting forward.

"You… didn't make mistakes." She raised her eyebrows in question.

"You didn't," I repeated with a light shrug.

"Sometimes you can do everything perfectly and still fail. There are unforeseen circumstances. Sure, you could assume you should have gone to a diviner before the job or some other bullshit, but let's be honest, those aren't something you can do every time you take a request." Ophelia let out a long exhale before finally speaking.

"I'll call the cats tomorrow to find the next target."

"You do that," I replied. We then sat in silence for a good minute before she straightened back up, looking at me.

"That's it?"

"Yep. The briefing's over, good job. Better luck next time. Now that we know you are on someone's radar, you have to adjust for that."

"Uh-huh." My apprentice began to pick herself up to get back to her place, but I stopped her.

"Oh, actually, I never asked. What was the ritual you were supposed to perform on the guy?"

"I was supposed to drown him," Ophelia said as her eyes drifted to the open window through which moonlight flowed into the room.

"Drown him in a pond reflecting the moon, then draw my god's sigil in his blood."

"Interesting. Liquids are an interesting carrier—quite unusual."

"Did you use them before?" Ophelia asked, sitting back down, earning a nod from me.

"Right. So how do you drown the target? I thought about holding him underwater, but the issue is that the reflection must remain undisturbed. But also, the pond has clear dimensions and an amount of water I'm supposed to use, so I can't just throw him into a pool and be done with it."

"All numerological symbols, I imagine."

"Yeah, so I can't use any shackles secured to the pond. And I need the guy fully submerged, but also naked. Was hard to solve." I smiled at the issue. Some rituals were like that—solving a riddle to perform them. Those were my favorites.

"There are a few practices. How did you solve it?"

"I used the technique described in one of Solomon's books. Give the man a paralytic and then squeeze all the air out of his lungs before drowning. Feed him lead if he needs to be weighed down further."

"Good technique. But I believe you took it from the Psalm of Leviathan." She nodded at my words, prompting me to continue.

"The drowning there also requires a reflective surface. However, the water in that ritual is just a means of killing. It doesn't have any magical properties to be endowed into the body. Is it the same in your case?"

"No… the water should carry the goddess's magic. Why?"

"Ahhhh." I gave a slow, wise nod, "that's an easy mistake to make. If you give someone a muscle relaxant and then wait to squeeze the air out, even if you do it before they die of suffocation, the issue is that the lungs' muscles stop working, and they won't breathe in the water. Sure, technically the death will be underwater, but if you need the liquid to endow flesh with magic, then usually the victim must drink and breathe in the water," I explained.

"Ooooh. But how do I do that if the surface can't be disturbed?"

"One, you use a special toxin and inject it into the muscle groups you need to be paralyzed, so everything but the lungs and throat. Two, glue his arms and legs together. And three… add gelatin to the water." The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

"What?"

"Add gelatin. You don't have to turn it into jello, just enough to make disturbing the surface harder. Just make sure it's one that doesn't color the water. Trust me, you might not like the effect if you use a red pond for summoning. That way the water can change the body…" I paused as a sudden idea rattled into my head.

"That way, you will change the body's properties and allow whatever the liquid does to affect the flesh from the inside out. The effect is incomparable to normal ritualistic mutations," I finished to myself, my gaze glued to the wall behind Ophelia.

"I'll adjust for the next one," she said, once again getting ready to go out. I, on the other hand, was still frozen in my spot. Why didn't I think of that earlier? I barely registered the door closing shut as I began to gather my things back together, not waiting until the end of the night to confirm my theory. I went to the storage, breaking a few speed limits on my way there. Once I got to the place, I went for the bookshelf like a starving man for food. The passage of time eluded me as I began reading.

The ring of my phone slowly surfaced in my mind as I was turning the pages of the Butcher's tome on abominations. The sound irritated me as my eyes stayed glued to the page, my mental muscles trying to swat the distraction away as if swatting an annoying fly. But like an annoying fly, after stopping for a good few seconds, the sound came back.

"Goddamn it," I swore under my breath, finally putting the large tome to the side as it dropped to the ground with a loud thud, almost tipping over a small stack of other documents I had beside me.

"What do you want?" I asked, picking up the phone.

"What do you mean, what do I want?" the cat on the other side spat into the phone.

"You were surprised at the job site. Ophelia gave us the full story."

"Okay."

"Okay? What do you mean, okay? We got interrupted."

"Most likely the government trying some bullshit."

"Yes. And the fact that they did and did it successfully isn't good, is it?" the cat asked in a sarcastic voice. I stopped for a few seconds, taking a deep breath and then exhaling slowly as I brought my mind to the conversation, pushing away the deep want to get back to my research.

"I know. You're right," I agreed reluctantly.

"I know I'm right. We'll get Ophelia to the fortune teller to check for tracking magic or any eyes on her. But I doubt we'll get anywhere with it."

"You think it's FBI surveillance."

"Not sure what else. The police call was pretty telling."

"Agreed," I said and got up, stretching myself after—I paused, then checked the phone clock and felt my eyebrows raise. It was twelve o'clock. I sat like that for ten hours. Time flies when you're having fun.

"Did you try your contact within the FBI?" I asked.

"Yes, but no documentation about surveillance made it to him. So either his clearance was too low, the action was off the record, or—""Or your man is choosing the other side of the equation."

"Exactly," the cat agreed without hesitation.

"I'll be on the lookout when the FBI gets back to me. But we need to do something about that blindside. It's the second time someone has tracked me in two goddamn days."

"Already on it," the cat sighed.

"We have something in the works on our side."

"Good." I gave my broker my side of the story, and then the call ended, leaving me alone in the cluttered room. My eyes drifted to the side to the Butcher's book on abominations as the idea surfaced in my mind once again.

'Killing Peter.' The thought rattled in my head like an annoying echo. Well, he technically wouldn't die, assuming I was right, of course. More like he would become a ghost possessing his own body. But… calling it dangerous was like calling a ripped-off arm a flesh wound. Yet the idea took firm root in my head. It should work. The logic was sound. Probably. Technically. Not like such a case was studied before.

I would still need more research beyond one night spent in the books, but I also didn't have that much time. The issue was the upcoming trip to deal with the Talapir. I could most likely take on the hive mind's royal guard with some help from my friends and the FBI—assuming they were still on my side—but the issue was the fluid surrounding the queen, the possibility of air filled with disease, and Abyss knew what else.

What I needed was for someone to be able to approach the queen and do something about her mental abilities while we fought, and assuming I could turn Peter into a half-ghost, it would make him the perfect candidate. The issue was that I could kill him in the process. I arched my back, stretching once again, my eyes now on the ceiling, noticing the many cables snaking there. Right. Ophelia's snake could work. The idea came to me.

The snake was also a good candidate, but whether poison would work on the queen was another matter. Maybe the FBI would have something useful, but I wasn't sure what their play was either. Assuming it was their trick with the cops, they were clearly up to something. I still wasn't sure how to feel about them. Once the pathways were connected, much of the technology would stop working, but at the same time, Q'Shar and everyone else were researching ways to preserve it, and the results were promising.

I wasn't sure how to think of them. They could very well prove to be a non-threat or even be a possible challenge to the power of the mages, even with magic back. I was curious about what their next play would be, although the thing with the police did make me slightly raise their threat level in my mind. Of course, the slight rise in excitement also couldn't be denied. The days slowly passed as I, the FBI, the cats, and, well, everyone else worked on our assignments. The FBI was keeping quiet.

Apparently, the metro angle was still in progress, taking time. There was also an autopsy of the crazy doctor, but nothing came out of it. All the inhuman parts liquefied. Whether it was a preventive measure or a coincidence, I wasn't entirely sure. The only thing that stood out was that the repeated ability to grant magic to clearly non-magical individuals was starting to worry—or rather, annoy—me, as worry was mostly a hollow shell in my mind. Being a part of the hive mind was one thing.

I could understand how that would grant one magic, much like how sacred beings granted their gifts. But what the doctor presented was much more complicated. How much control the queen had over the man was debatable. The idea of granting powers left and right was a cause for concern. Hopefully, with the Talapir being the source, dealing with it would fix the issue. As for my side, well, there was progress. I did come up with a plan—more or less.

The only issue was that someone needed to get to the queen to block her ability to control her flock using a concoction of mine, an interesting liquid I found in the pages of Liber Ivonis, the ancient book of my family. And Peter was looking like the increasingly better candidate, and the more I read through the Butcher's notes on creating abominations, the more certain I became of my idea. The plan actually came from the man the Butcher held as a slave, an abomination with a spark sealed inside, created to suffer.

The victim's flesh was changed by the seal, and if adjusted, assuming I could perform a similar technique for Peter, I might create a shell of sorts. Yet such a thing would not come to be without side effects. I closed the massive tome and looked back at my notes, searching for a mistake I might have made. And when I found none, I took my phone and called Peter to set up a meeting and propose the strangest offer he would receive.