Chương 97: 90. Possible homicide

"So what do you think? It's a real paranormal encounter, right?" she asked, half scared and half excited. I looked at her with raised eyebrows.

"So ghost hunters don't believe in ghosts?"

"Well, it's not that I don't believe, it's that we've never seen an actual ghost or demon… well, at least until now," Mercy finished with a smile, to which Cecil rolled his eyes.

"So what do you think it is?" she asked me, stopping the footage at the strange shape outside the window.

"Well, I think it's a possessed boar," I said. It wasn't that far from the truth.

"Oh wow."

"Riiight," Cecil said, looking at us.

"So why didn't the possessed boar attack?" he asked with skepticism.

"Well, apparently, Mercy is pure of heart, so the creature had no interest in her," I explained without missing a beat.

"Pfff, Mercy pure of heart? Duuude, what are you smoking? Y'all remember her ex, the–ouch," Victor started, but whatever he was about to say about Mercy's ex was stopped by a flying pillow to the face.

"Purity of mind and body are different things," I continued my bullshit with the wisest voice I could put on.

"Sure," Rey commented, not lifting his head from a sheet of paper. They continued to bicker about Mercy's purity while I fell deep in thought, thinking about what could be driving the mutants. I finally sighed and checked the time. Ophelia should be done with Myhur's lessons and be at the storage by now. So, I excused myself and walked out. Before leaving, I caught Rey's gaze for a moment. He seemed to be observing me today more than usual. Once outside, I called Ophelia.

"Hello." She picked up.

"Hey. Are you at the storage?" I went straight to the point.

"Not even gonna ask how I'm doing?" she replied in a fake-hurt voice.

"How are you doing?"

"Fine." There was a bit of silence after that. I think she was spending too much time with cats. The sass rubbed off on her.

"Thanks for that stunning description. Now, are you at the storage?"

"Yep."

"Good. I want you to look for a book for me. Carmen pro Aurora Animarum. It should be somewhere on the desk." I could hear some shuffling in the background as she searched. I took some books about souls with me, but left that one in the storage. The reason was that it described spells and rituals that were written for war with mortals, and I didn't need help fighting mundane people.

"Um. Is it the one with, like… a human screaming face?"

"Do you know how little that narrows it down?"

"It's carved from wood, and there are some letters Carmen pro, but the rest of the title is under the face's jaw."

"That should be it. Okay, find the concutere animam spell. It should be around the middle."

"Okay—ew, it moved."

"Aww, it likes you."

"That's disgusting." Page turning could be heard on the phone until Ophelia confirmed she had the spell.

"Good, now send me a photo of the text."

"Mhmmm. Got it."

"Thanks." I said goodbye and disconnected to look at the photo. And sure enough. The effect of the spell was white, cloudy, and boiled-looking eyes, accompanied by an expression of pain on the face that would stay after death. The spell was called Shatter Soul. It was similar to normal Shatter, which was a simple assault against enemy mana, but soul-oriented. And there was a reason I didn't learn it. Much like Shatter, it required much more magic than the target possessed. The same applied here.

You needed much more power than the target. It was a useless spell if you used it on any other mage, as a difference of around three circles was required. With a gap like that, you could just kill someone by easier means, no need to waste that much magic. The spell had a different use. It was a shock-and-awe attack against normal humans. A soul mage would pick a person with the best armor on the battlefield to cast it.

From the perspective of normal people, the mage would just point at the target, and they would collapse, dead, with their face twisted in pain. So whoever, or whatever, used it here was at least at the third circle. A definition of bad news. This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. Assuming the mutations were capable of magic and not entirely mindless, then that would mean the kids from the party weren't my patient zero.

If it was a mutant that got them with that soul shatter, then whatever caused the mutation could have happened before the party, assuming it wasn't just another mage snooping around. But the spell used would be strange for a modern mage, so I was leaning towards mutant. To make it more annoying, I now had a new hole in the story, and that was the cremation of the bodies. I doubt just a screaming face was enough to shake a mortician so much that he would do a cover-up with the police. Did the bodies move?

Or maybe start mutating later, after the report was written? I would need to get in contact with the mortician. I went back into the house, but to my surprise, I was met with the sight of Rey waiting for me at the top of the stairs.

"Is this the bad cop routine?" I asked as I went up and stood in front of him.

"You'd better pray you don't see my bad cop routine."

"Uh, now I'm interested," I said, grinning at him.

"What's your game?"

"What game?"

"You had a 'feeling' about the preacher's son. And would you believe? We talked with the police, and it turns out he has been reported as missing." Now that was interesting, very interesting. Something to do with his father, I imagine.

"Okay, and what does it have to do with me?"

"That's what I'm trying to figure out. You have a hunch about the boy, and he turns out to be missing. So don't give me that 'just a feeling' bullshit."

"Maybe I heard it during my own investigation?" I threw an excuse and started to walk forward to wrap up the talk. But Rey smiled at that as he stepped in front of me.

"Interesting, because… I misspoke about the 'reported' part. The preacher wanted to keep it quiet, so there was no report or official case, just a concerned mother's request to look out for her kid. And no one on the precinct heard about you. I asked." Ah shit, I should have figured out the preacher would do everything to keep his good family head image.

"So how did you know to look into the preacher's son, I wonder?" He came closer to me.

"If you have any info on the missing kid and are concealing it for your exorcism shtick, then I will make sure you end up in jail for a long, long time. Do you understand?"

"I didn't know about him being missing. Just a hunch." I then smiled.

"Now I wonder why all of you didn't want me to come when you went to the police. I mean, Cecil seemed eager to have me around. I thought we were partners?" I said in a fake hurt voice.

"Nothing illegal about asking around. Unless? Talking about cases that don't exist? Using your position to get some inside info, are we? I thought you were better than that." I finished in a surprised voice. I could see him flinch. So those were police papers they hid so quickly, the kind they shouldn't have.

"Don't stick your nose where it doesn't belong," Rey barked. I would get to those papers when he wasn't around. I should be able to talk Cecil into showing them to me.

"Ironic coming from you. But I'll try my best, officer." I saluted. He looked like he was about to say something more, but finally gave up. I was curious about the whole missing thing. When we interviewed the parents, there were a lot of bad emotions, but not that much worry. It was closer to sadness. So did they know where he was, or that at least he was alive? I needed to question the girl and then somehow pressure the preacher.

After that, I went back into the room and waited until the time for the school meeting came. I drove there alongside the others. It was held in a school auditorium. I looked at the parents, trying to see something unusual or maybe sense a soul mage that could have been the author of the "overdoses," but nothing came up. The only surprise was that I couldn't see the preacher. He was the type to enjoy discussing what youth should and shouldn't do and how lost they were.

I listened in and asked around, trying to find the parents of the girl's friends from yesterday's last interview. But sadly, my aura got in the way. Parents immediately got suspicious when it came to their children, so none gave me any answers. Even the "children's counselor" excuse didn't do much. I waited for the meeting to begin so I could visit Sandra.

After five more minutes, a blonde middle-aged woman with a voice reminding me of a crow took the stage and started screeching about how this is the fall of society. I quickly bolted out of there around the time she started talking about the lack of God among the youth, as Cecil was looking at me like he had another candidate for a speech for his documentary. I was not risking that. I almost tripped over some boy talking on the phone outside as I rushed out of the building and into my car.

I wanted to make my exit unseen when they were doing the speeches, but oh well. I drove to Sandra's house, thinking up an excuse to speak with the teenager without getting the police called on me. Getting in with something like "I know about the preacher's son" would be good, and then using mental magic to pretend I was just confirming what I knew. My planning, however, was cut short by police sirens.

For a second, I thought that maybe Rey had called someone on me just to make my life tougher, but the police cruiser sped past me. They then took a right turn, which was precisely the direction I was going in. I had a bad feeling about this. I sped up and drove after the police car. I could see blue and red lights in the distance, right where the house was. There was already an ambulance at the place and another police car.

After parking slightly farther away, I walked to join a group of interested neighbors crowding around the place. I looked at the house. The window of the girl's room was broken, with the glass lying in the grass outside. Through it, some of the room could be seen. It was covered in blood, not like the one in the hideout with the safe, but splashes of red were visible on the walls. I could also see paramedics working on someone inside.

"What happened?" I asked one of the neighbors next to me.

"Don't know, I heard screaming. I got out, and it was like that. I think it's a break-in," said an older man, not looking away from the spectacle.

"Yeah," I agreed and looked back at the scene. I asked a few more people, but they told me the same story. They heard some commotion and then screaming. No one saw anything, except for one person who noticed "some movement," which wasn't much. Finally, the two paramedics left the house in a hurry with a stretcher. To my surprise, judging by the pressure they applied to a nasty gash on the chest, the girl was still alive.

Gasps of surprise could be heard all around as everyone noticed the victim being carried into the ambulance. And then I felt it. Mana. The two men probably didn't sense it, as they were all sweaty from the effort, but the air around the wound was hotter. It was fire magic, or rather fire-attuned energy. Could it be? Early stages of mutation? I came closer to identify the magic. It was around the first circle and radiated from the flesh, as if something magical was attaching itself to it. She was mutating.

I would have to follow her to the hospital. And call the cats, there could be a shit show on our hands soon. If it were a soul mutation, then the possibility of stopping or curing it was around zero, not on my level. Magic caught on video was easy to explain, but another human growing out of someone overnight and then blasting spells wasn't. Most of all, I really didn't need the Vatican snooping around my case.

I turned around to get into my car, trying to think how I would fix the issue, when a police radio in a cruiser piped up. I was about to go, but the distress on the call caught my attention.

"Units 3 and 4, respond. Signal 58, possible homicide. Deceased person in a residence, Oak Ridge, at the preacher's house, unknown circumstances. Please respond." I froze on the spot. Possible homicide at the preacher's house. Another kill already? I stood there like a deer in headlights. If I went to the hospital, there was a possibility of seeing a mutation up close. If I went to the preacher's house, I could see the crime scene firsthand. But most of all, the place was relatively close, so if I hurried…

could I catch up to the killer?