3rd PAWW’s story

This week’s story was loosely inspired by this one that I wrote back as an entry for my 100 Theme Challenge.

Edmond believed he enjoyed his work most of the time. It wasn’t easy, kept straining on his meticulous perfectionism and observation skills, but nothing could replace the satisfying feeling when he successfully resolved a criminal case. He pushed aside the tragedy of the human’s creativity applied to hurt others in order to do his job and came back to his apartment after he left his work where it should stay – at work.

Nobody had tried to steal a corpse from the principal cemetery of the city yet in his investigator’s career, however.

The local police didn’t know how to proceed with the scene and had called him to the rescue.

“What kind of ritual is this?” The photograph asked with disdain and mild fascination, snapping pictures of one of the signs surrounding the hole.

“That’s what I’ll soon know,” Edmond replied. He was already dialing an old friend’s number. Symbols drawn in blood in the snow, the dirt of the dug grave a stark contrast around the white. Many footsteps, Edmond could discern more than one pair. The detail bothering him was the handprints on one side, and the pattern of the dirt was off. It was evidence enough that the grave had been opened from inside out.

Professor McGrevor was a specialist on occultism. She’d been studying it most of her life and firmly believed there were things out there than the average human couldn’t grasp unto. She was the reference Edmond was going to when one of his cases involved something a bit out of ordinary.

“I think I saw this before, somewhere…” She immediately stated after a look at the symbols on the photos I showed her. Her office was nicely decorated, Edmond liked to visit it when he had the opportunity to, or when he had an excuse.

“You do? I’m surprised…” He said sarcastically. Prof. McGrevor was messy and hot-headed but also had an eidetic memory, which was useful with cases like this. She searched through her books for a while, leaving Edmond to sip his coffee, and finally came back victorious.

“I believe those are necromancy symbols used for a ritual. Nowadays people tend to follow Lovecraft’s Necronomicon in vain attempts to resurrect someone, but necromancy existed well before that, and Lovecraft’s book is nothing but popular fiction. Necromancers were more common during Middle Ages, I’m actually surprised someone is following the old methods.”

“So a necromancer tried to resurrect someone yesterday?” Edmond raised his eyebrows. A necromancer in town? That was new and something he wasn’t sure he was believing in.

“Yes, and those pictures prove they succeeded.”

Edmond scoffed. “Whatever, I’ll believe it when I see it.”

He received a call from the analysts telling him they picked on some fresh blood in the snow from the handprints. It belonged to the young girl. Edmond decided a visit to her parents was in order.

Their house was in a nice neighborhood of bureaucrats, fancy enough with their white fence and emerald grass. Nothing was out of the ordinary. Edmond parked in front of their house and knocked on their front door.

The father answered with a careful look. Luckily Edmond wore casual clothes, he smiled politely and asked if he could talk to his wife and him. It wasn’t until the father refused to open his door any further even after he flashed his police badge he knew something was off. He forced his way in, but stopped in his tracks.

“What the– ”

The young girl was alive and well, watching him with wide eyes as her mother was hugging her against her.

“She’s alive…”

“She is,” her father began. “And no one is going to take her from us again.”

Edmond took a moment to collect his thoughts. His head began to throb.

“Tell me at least how this happened,” he said as he massaged his temple.

They told him of their sorrow ever since the death of their daughter about a month ago, how sad they were one night as they were trying to clean her room. A man had appeared at their door to present them with a deal. He claimed he could resurrect their daughter, with a price, and they accepted. What was their shock to see their daughter in flesh and blood, disoriented but happy to see them.

“Do you have any information about that man? Could you describe him to me?”

“He told us he heard our distress all the way from the other side of town, and either he was speaking in metaphors, or he truly lives near the port. It wouldn’t even surprise us after he created this miracle.”

He also had long hair and dark clothes, but they couldn’t remember his face for some reason. That didn’t give him much to work with, but it was better than nothing.

He looked for any suspicious activity in the area and wanted to shake his head when he learnt of a shop called Victor’s Bones. Had this been easy all along?

The sun was setting when he put his coat on and took his car to visit the town’s port. It was the poor neighborhood where crime rates were the highest. Edmond knew the place almost by heart, but never had he seen the shop before, hidden between two tall buildings.

A bell rang above the door when he entered, and he was immediately greeted with the smell of strong incense. Perhaps it was to hide the odor of something else. He saw no one when he moved into the shop, but he heard movement behind the counter.

“Hello?” He tentatively said, and who he saw appear wasn’t what he expected.

He looked normal, with fair complexion and large blue eyes, a rock t-shirt hanging on his small frame. His long dark hair was pulled in a high ponytail that did nothing good for Edmond’s heart.

“Sorry, I was tidying the backstore. What can I do for you?”

“Oh, um… I… Are you Victor?”

“It is I, yes.”

“Did you resurrect a young girl?” Edmond blurted out, finding no other way to ask that question.

Victor looked surprised for a moment, then chuckled while shrugging. “I could lie and tell you to get out, but what’s the point? Look, this wasn’t her time, and her parents were desperate, so I did what I had to.”

Edmond blinked at him and finally sighed. “How am I going to explain this to the office?”

The PAWW Project