The Arcane: Alistair Mann

CHAPTER 4 ORGANIC MATERIAL

Agent Magnus Prince opens the door to an abandoned flower shop on Main Street of Eau Claire and walks inside. From the outside it appears to only be a rundown building of a shop that closed years ago. The LED sign that once brightly displayed Ma's Floral Emporium, now hangs sadly from one chain with no light emitting from it. Dust and dirt from years of not getting cleaned cover the once spotless windows that gave glimpses into the rows of beautiful flowers behind them. Now, since the FBI moved a temporary headquarters there until the Cormorants case is resolved, all the windows are boarded over making the place look even more abandoned and lonely. Inside the building it is stripped out of all its shelves; computers, desks, and files taking their place.

Agent Prince strides over to Young who is scratching her sandy blond hair contemplatively. He smiles slightly and says, "I checked with all the families and nearby relatives to see their spin on the events and to get a sense of their relationships. All around the board it was the consensus that the mother seemed to belittle the Cormorants, especially her daughter Thalia, the woman that was murdered. They did say though that to some extent it was justified, saying that Thalia's-"

Young interjects, "Stop using her first name. Detach emotion from your investigation."

Agent Prince raises an eyebrow and continues, "Saying Mrs. Cormorant's family was fairly inappropriate, one might say facetious."

Young sits down in her high-back wheeled chair behind her perfectly organized desk. The folders neatly stacked or filed away, and the various pens and pencils put away in their holders, nothing out of place. Agent Prince leans against her desk slightly which barely knocks a folder out of place. She glares at him until he stands up and straightens the folder.

Agent Young continues, "How does one freeze and keep frozen five bodies without any external signs? Nothing except touch. There were no signs of a break-in and the only things out of place were the clothes strewn across their bedroom floors."

Prince bites his lower lip and says hopeful, "Perhaps some chemical agent we are not aware of yet, it must be."

A shy young man walks up to the two agents and says, "Excuse me, but I was told to tell you Agent Young and Agent Prince, that the ME says that he needs to see both of you."

Agent Young looks up at the young man standing a few paces back from her desk and says, "It must be important."

The young man nods his head and says, "Yes, the ME says it is urgent."

"Well then we better be on our way, Magnus."

While it is unprofessional to use the Agent's first name, Agent Young doesn't really care.

The two agents get up from their seats and exit out of the front glass double doors of the old flower shop. Several paces away waits their black standard issue Range Rover. Agent Young always insists on driving, trying to not let anything deviate from her ideal way of life with the addition of a partner. Agent Young would deny it, but her OCD often makes her hold onto seemingly childish acts. Agent Prince never says anything though, he always has looked up to Young and was not going to let little discrepancies interfere with Agent Young's obvious ability to be able to teach. The elder agent has a process for just about every aspect in her day-to-day life and any disruptions bothered her. "Perhaps that is why she became an agent," Agent Prince thinks, "The idea of letting things continue out of place from her world view is too much to leave it be."

Within a few minutes the two pull up to a curb and park in a business-oriented neighborhood near the Hospital. The ME's office is a small one-story building with a basement, where all the bodies are kept and where the autopsies take place. The outside of the building is simple, boring, and bland. Black bricks start the first four feet of the building until it transitions to dark gray vinyl siding. Walking through the door, Agents Prince and Young are greeted by an assistant.

"Ah, I see you have arrived," a boy of perhaps sixteen says.

He is short for his age and thicker too. His long unkempt black hair tumbles down freely all around his head. His unruly bangs defiantly hang down in front of his eyes, causing the boy to constantly have his head tilted back so he can see clearer. Although the soft frame and light skin might promote a presence of gentleness, this was far from the truth in many ways. He was born to be a medical examiner and loves working with his father. The gruesome and grotesque bodies never bothered the boy even at a much younger age. His father, instead of keeping his son from his freakish interests helped him delve into them. From the time the boy was seven years old he was helping his father at the morgue.

The boy continues, "Follow me."

He leads the two agents down a bright hallway lit by lights hidden in the upper corners of the walls. On opposing sides of the hallway are doors leading into various rooms, all dark. At the end of the hallway is a large elevator. Made to easily carry several bodies on stretchers down to the building's lower floor.

"My father nor I know what to make of those dead bodies. Their-" the boy cuts himself off, "I guess I should probably just let my father tell you."

The elevator doors open, and the trio walk through and into a large room. On the left wall there are columns of cooled containers that hold dead bodies. In the surrounding areas of the room various medical equipment is spread around. In the middle of the room there are five tables lined next to each other, each one of the bodies on them stripped down nude and with a white sheet covering them. The ME looks up from his work when he sees the two agents and his son approaching. He puts down his scalpel and tweezers. Both Agent Young and Prince notice a look of fear across the man's wrinkled face.

"Good afternoon, Agents Young and Prince. My name is Doctor Robert Sinclair. I see you have met my son Benjamin," the ME says.

Agent Young nods her head while Agent Prince says, "Yes, nice boy."

A corner of Doctor Sinclair's mouth twitches in slight amusement. Then he says, "I autopsied all five of the bodies and all yielded the same results, chilling results. It seemed at first that the bodies were frozen. That's why at the mutilation sites there wasn't any blood flowing, but this isn't so. I found that there is an extremely thin layer of what appears to be an organic material covering the entirety of their epidermis. Now this foreign tissue is cold to the touch, and so far, it doesn't seem to be, well...human or animal or..." Doctor Sinclair trails off.

"I'm sorry, what are you saying?" Agent Young asks.

"I'm saying that this layer of foreign material is either from something that hasn't been discovered yet, or it isn't from this world. And there is something else; exteriorly there were no signs of any kind of incisions or cuts, no lacerations; but the brains of all the victims are gone. And I can't figure as to how they were removed.

A small smile tugs at the corners of Agent Young's mouth, "In all my years I thought I had seen it all, but alas there is always something else. Agent Prince, the game is on."

Chills run down a confused Agent Prince's back as he gazes unsteadily at Robert Sinclair and his son Benjamin. A mysterious organic layer covering the bodies? This cannot be true, Doctor Sinclair must be mistaken and going crazy. But this isn't so, Robert Sinclair has never been saner.

"How do you figure the bodies were positioned upright?" asks Agent Young.

"Unclear," replies Doctor Sinclair, "Perhaps our mystery skin, if you will, holds the answer to that. That isn't all though. The blood that we thought was frozen isn't even in their bodies, it's just gone. And those swirls of pooled blood beneath the arrangement of bodies wasn't theirs."

"Gone where? And who's was it?" asks Agent Young.

"You are not going to believe this, but it's yours Agent Young, and yours Agent Prince, and all of the other officers at the scene."