The victim’s body was so torn up that Hector couldn’t even guess the gender. He was a bit surprised at how much sights like this still affected him. Part of him wished that he could just get used to it all, that he could be unflappable in the face of this sort of thing, but there was just something about seeing the aftermath of brutality. Seeing it actually unfold was horrible, too, but he could deal with that. It was only when he saw the outcome, the terrible end, that it really started getting to him, making his chest hurt and his stomach turn.
This poor person. Whoever they were, their death certainly did not look painless.
At length, Garovel stirred Hector out of his morbidity with a private question. ‘So what’re you thinking?’
Hector rubbed his chin with one hand. ‘Probably the same thing as everyone else. Ibai lost control and killed someone.’
‘That’s it? Nothing else?’
Hector’s mouth flattened.
‘C’mon, Hector, we’re investigators now. Doesn’t any of this strike you as strange?’
‘Well, there’s a dead person here.’
‘You know that’s not what I’m talking about.’
‘...I take it you don’t think Ibai did this?’
‘I don’t know. I’m asking your opinion. Your REAL opinion. The one you’ve formed using your actual brain. I know you’re a rational person, Hector.’ A beat passed. ‘Well, most of the time.’
Hector cocked an eyebrow at him.
‘Agh, I’m asking for your help. Don’t be an asshole about it. A fucking terrible thing happened here, and we need to figure out exactly what it was. Because if Ibai isn’t responsible for it, then that means someone else is, possibly with the intention to kill again.’
Hector knew the reaper had a good point. He’d known all along, really. He’d just wanted to be stubborn this time. Unfortunately, that didn’t seem to be an option. ‘Alright,’ said Hector. ‘Well... I mean... this IS kinda weird. When I imagined Ibai losing it, I didn’t think he’d be so... stupid about it.’
‘Exactly. Only an idiot would kill someone this way. And with his powers? He could’ve easily hid the body before anyone discovered it.’
‘Maybe, but he couldn’t have hid the mess,’ said Hector. ‘All this blood--this doesn’t strike me as something that was planned ahead of time.’
‘Maybe that’s what the killer wants us to think,’ said Garovel.
A dark serial novel. Set in a modern fantasy world called Eleg. Mature language. Updates every night at midnight PST by ~400 words.
Nobody has tried questioning the soul yet? At the very least, an unattached reaper can do it, and with care, a soul can be held together.
ReplyDeleteI would guess that a reaper can only see the soul, not talk to it, unless they actually take the deceased as a servant, except that I remember Garovel talking to Hector before actually taking him. Of course, if they do have any unattached reapers taking the guy on a servant just long enough to question him would be viable, but I don't think they do have one handy.
ReplyDeleteAlso, the soul might not still be there. If Ibai was responsible (which I strongly doubt) he would likely have eaten it, and if a traitor or infiltrator was responsible, everybody and their grandmother is a servant, which means that they come with a method of disposing of inconveniently knowledgeable souls, especially when they also want blame falling on the Aberration.
I'm personally leaning towards a traitor, since nobody is picking up an unfamiliar servant+reaper signature on their soul-vision, and given how perfectly the blame fell on Ibai they would have to have been monitoring him closely enough to know mistrust for him would be a weak point, possibly even figured out when he would port where to make him step in the corpse.
Suicide. Calling it now.
ReplyDeleteIt sounds like he was way too mutilated to have done it by himself. Hector couldn't even identify gender, which means the face and much of the body must have been slashed or pounded beyond recognition (I'm assuming no obvious chemical or thermal burns), which a person simply could not inflict on him or herself without a device of some kind, which would still be visible. It might be a servant who committed suicide and then mutilated their own corpse and left it, but that would be hard to pull off undetected, especially since self-destructing again would leave a corpse, unless the user is a non-obvious gas transfig who could simply vaporize their second body. Still leaves a lot of challenge though, especially since if they got caught even Parson+Overra couldn't fight back like that with the servant gone.
ReplyDeleteAh. I guess I didn't make it obvious enough that I was joking. It's very, very clearly not suicide.
ReplyDelete‘Maybe that’s what the killer wants us [to] think,’ said Garovel.
ReplyDeleteHe wad killed for not eating his sandwich.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if Garovel will notice on the next page that the soul isn't there? I'm assuming it's not, since none of the reapers (or Ibai) appear to be reacting to it, and I would have thought they would if it was still there.
ReplyDeleteIf/when they notice, I wonder if they can test Ibai's shadow to see if he's grown stronger? That would be good proof of whether or not he did the deed (I agree with you, I don't think he did).
We don't know the exact mechanism for Ibai eating souls though. Its somehow related to teleporting. Remember that Ibai teleported a few feet in the kitchen, and dragged the body along. What if, somehow, taking the body into the Void - or wherever - consumed the body's soul, even though Ibai did not kill him?
ReplyDeleteWe do know, from that time when some other Blackburns offered him enemy reapers. He kills the victim with his shadow, and then teleports before the remains fully dissipate. I posit that it's an assassin-type ability; blink in, slash, blink out and get the soul.
ReplyDeleteEven so, I'd like to take back my earlier assertion that the corpse couldn't be a servant. I'd been thinking that it was JUST eviscerated, but if it's been that badly mauled there might indeed be a brain shot hidden in there.
ReplyDeleteNow that I'm a bit less sleepy, it does seem pretty obvious sarcasm. I tend to take stuff people say too seriously when I can't see expressions, which is weird because I can totally spot deadpan sarcasm.
ReplyDeleteGot it, thank you.
ReplyDeleteDepends: if you're able to mutilate a corpse to beyond recognition, who's to say you can't do a similar thing to a soul? Worse, trying to frame Ibai? You'd get rid of the soul, ASAP. By whatever means, but the best way would be to make it look like he consumed it on purpose. :/
ReplyDelete