Genesis End


 

Chapter Twelve - Seeing God

"...awe?"

"I'm certain, now, that I understand what happened here," Ha'Khael said as he swept his hands along the air, almost like a mime might. He stopped. "Ahhh, yes, there it is. It's like I said, once you know the intent, detecting the spell is child's play."

"What are you saying," Gemini asked, "that you know how these people are being murdered?"

"That's precisely what I'm saying did not happen here, knight. Stick to the sword if you refuse to open your mind. These people were not murdered, far from it. They were saved."

"Ok, you better start making sense soon," I grumbled. I was getting really tired of his holier-than-thou attitude. I mean, he was a demon after all!

"Very well, squire," he said with a tilt of his head, "I will put this all in a perspective even you can understand - we will work our way backwards. Examine cause and effect. A rather mechanical approach - this should appeal to you, yes?" He didn't give me time to answer, which is probably for the better since I would have just said something snide anyways. "This man is dead. Why? His soul is missing. Why? Someone took it, of course. How was it taken? A spell was cast."

"We know all this already," Hard groaned. Ha'Khael ignored him.

"Cause and effect. A spell was cast, a man is dead. You make the assumption that an effect is the intended consequence of its cause. But it needn't be. In fact, it rarely is. Killing him was not the intent of the spell, it was a... well, I suppose "side-effect" would be the colloquialism."

"So whoever did this didn't want this man to die?" I asked.

"Well, it would be more accurate to say that whether this man lived or died was irrelevant. Although surely the caster knew that their actions would cause this man to die and cast the spell anyways. But we're digressing from the point. We've identified a key aspect of the spell - lack of malicious intent. That's not enough to narrow it down. But the man's expression gives us the missing piece. Awe. Do you know what would make someone quiver with awe?"

I shrugged. Awe wasn't really something we came across in this day and age. We'd pretty much seen everything there was to see, I thought.

"Seeing God," Ha'Khael answered.

"God?" Hard repeated, skepticism radiating from his massive form.

"Or at least something he perceived as a God," Ha'Khael said dismissively. "A hallucination, maybe, or some kind of intricately fabricated illusion. The 'what' matters less than the 'why'. Much of the reason why souls are so difficult to acquire is because those who possess them are very protective of them, even subconciously. It's why demons invented the Faustian Bargain, as a way to bind humans into forsaking their souls willingly. But it looks like our friend out there has decided to catch his flies with honey, not with vinegar. If this man believed he was in the presence of the Divine, it's not hard to believe he might surrender his soul completely, believing he was about to die and go to Heaven."

"Well what if he didn't believe in God?" I asked.

"Oh, rest assured, he is a believer. Look at the rest of your 'victims', and you'll find they are all devoutly religious. I can promise you that."

"Wait a second," Gemini countered, "you said that you suspected the killer never entered this place. Yet you also said that any spell strong enough to steal a soul could not be done from a distance. Well, which is it?"

Ha'Khael blinked. "It's both, of course. This spell is like a seed, fragile at first, but unnoticeable. Our friend plants it in his victims, and then it germinates. It's actually quite genius. Loosening the soul is done via illusion. Illusions require faith. Faith requires time. Cause and effect."

"You make it sound like some kind of virus," Hard said.

"Yes, I suppose that's a perfect way of looking at it." Ha'Khael said with a twinkle in his eye.

"Hold on," I interrupted, not liking the look on the demon's face. "A mystical virus? At the same time as a viral outbreak in the city? That can't be a coincidence, can it?!"

"Oh, now that you mention it," Ha'Khael cut in with a tone that made me think he was enjoying this way too much, "we never did discuss my findings with the KADE victims. Our knight was right, as it turns out. Their souls were taken too. Ah, posthumously, of course. Could've been done by nearly anybody. Not like with this chap." He patted the dead man's head playfully.

Gemini, Hard and I exchanged a look. This was it. There were too many similarities to ignore now; the murders had started at the same time, they were both 'viruses' of a kind, and the souls of all the victims were missing. These weren't seperate cases, they were connected. "So much of this doesn't add up," Hard said with a scowl. "The KADE outbreak I can get my head around. Someone's going around spreading the virus, and then when the victims are dead their souls get... collected, sold, whatever. But with these victims, why go to all this trouble? Why not just kill them and steal their souls after they're dead?"

"It is not for the sake of the killer, is it?" Gemini asked Ha'Khael, who simply smiled coyly and gave a slight nod. "It is for their sake. The victims'. That is what you meant when you said they were not murdered, they were 'saved'. That is what the intent of the spell is, to free their souls without any pain or anguish. To 'save' them from suffering."

"Give the man a prize," Ha'Khael grinned. Then, without warning, he pulled a knife from a fold in his robes. I was about to move to disarm him, but he didn't aim it at us. He plunged the knife into the dead man's back and cut a deep tear. I watched with a mix of horror and curiosity as he reached deep into the open slit in the man's back and pulled hard. I heard a sickening crack. When his hand emerged, it was holding... yikes, was that part of the guy's spine?!

"What the hell?!"

"Your prize," Ha'Khael said, busying his bloodied hands along the length of the bones, his eyes closed in intense concentration. "Identifying the spell was the hard part. Now that we know what the spell does, it will be easy enough to detect, and dare I say, also to undo, assuming we find the victims in time. This will act as a divining rod, of sorts. With it you can sense when someone afflicted by this spell is nearby, or even the caster themselves, assuming there is only one. Anyone with the magicks should be able to use it, even you, knight." He opened his eyes and unfurrowed his brow. "There, that should do it."

"Well then what are we waiting for?" I asked with a smile.

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