The Arcane: Alistair Mann

CHAPTER 9 DREAMSTATE

There is a dim glow of sunlight still lightly covering Agent Prince's bedroom. The beige curtains are drawn back and standing in front of them is Maggie. Her long red hair falls gracefully down her shoulders and cascades over her breasts. Agent Prince awakes and looks to his girlfriend.

"What do you fear most?" Maggie asks in a small voice.

"I don't know, why do you ask?" Agent Prince responds, sleep still tugging its welcoming strings.

"What do you fear most?" she asks again.

"I don't-"

Maggie whirls around and seemingly teleports to the side of the bed. Her face has no skin on it. Agent Prince stares at his girlfriend with fear shooting down his entire frame. As she stands there above him various muscles contracting are visible. Bright blood is dripping off her face and onto the white comforter. Her red sunken eyes are blazing as she stares at her Prince.

"What do you most fear?" She breathes quiet and menacingly.

Agent Prince closes his eyes and when he opens them, he is in a field with several trees spotted throughout and filled with various kinds of flowers. Some are lilies, some daisies, some Indian paintbrushes. Sunflowers stare happily towards the sun. A warm breeze blows across Agent Prince's face and a small smile spreads on his lips. Next to him sits his beautiful girlfriend picking out food from a wicker basket. Overhead they hear the sweet sounds of birds chirping in the kind sunlight. A crow lands in a nearby poplar and stares down at the couple sitting blissfully in the field. It thinks to itself in this moment of the pain that the young agent will have to endure in the coming days. Wanting to escape these depressing thoughts he crows once and flies off.

Agent Prince looks up at the crow flying above him then looks back to Maggie. Except now Maggie isn't next him. To the right where she was last, there is a trail of trampled grass and flowers. Quickly, he jumps to his feet and looks after the trail. A few hundred feet in front of him is the figure of Maggie getting dragged by her neck through the field. With tears running down his cheeks Agent Prince screams and runs after her. Nothing visible is dragging her through the cheerful flowers which sends a chill down the back of the agent. Maggie tries to call out to her Magnus frantically chasing her, but no sound comes out. Coughing, she scrapes at her throat. Trying to see who is dragging her she cranes her neck to one side and looks up. Magnus stares back down at her, but not her Magnus. This one has the same physical body but replacing Magnus's kind and somewhat mischievous smile is a menacing and insidious one. Magnus's sweet hazel eyes are replaced by blazing scarlet ones. Sharp teeth jut out of his mouth and his entire presence is shrouded in a misty cloud of black and gray smoke. His normally curly brown hair is now matted with flies buzzing around it.

A hand begins to violently shake Magnus. His head flashes up, then he looks towards his partner in the driver's seat.

"You were screaming," Agent Young says in a screeching and rasping voice.

Magnus watches as she turns her head to him. Staring back at him isn't his partner, but something else, something from the depths of hell. Not a spec on the face resembles anything human. Disfigurement beneath ghoulish appearances. Charred flesh hangs loosely over a gray skeleton. Where the eyes normally lie, there are just two empty burned sockets.

"I found them," Agent Young says. As it talks the flesh surrounding the lower mandible swishes around slowly.

Its arm jerks its middle finger to the back seat of the Range Rover they are in. In the back seats are the mauled forms of Maggie and himself lying against each other. Lacerations and burn marks cover their entire bodies. Maggie is missing most of the superficial parts of her torso.

"This is your destiny," A voice echoes.

+ + +

Magnus stares across the bustling headquarters in Eau Claire. The interviews that he and Agent Young had conducted yielded no new information to the case. Everyone was just as dumbfounded as they were. And the past few days he has been having nightmares. Every night is the same bone-chilling dream. Watching as Maggie gets helplessly taken from him and tortured while he is unable to stop it, a different kind of pain. None of the training the bureau ingrained into all their rookie agent's brains can prepare someone for this. Magnus took the job with the incorrigible Agent Young with a light and excited heart. He had heard many stories of her exploits and accomplishments and was overjoyed to be her partner. Even her gruff manner never dissuaded him from the excitement of working with the Agent Young. But now, Agent Prince thinks back to if he had never gotten the opportunity. He would still be back home in Fredericksburg, Virginia with Maggie. But then who would he be? Prince clenches his jaw as new determination enters him. This case has been defeating him, toying with him, playing him, well no longer.

Agent Young too has begun to have nightmares. She tries to ignore them like she does with many emotionally stressful situations. To her it's not worth it to fret over. Better to keep a straight head and follow your knowledge and logic. But these nightmares were like nothing she ever had to deal with. In them all of the cases she ever solved were shown to her again. Satisfaction overcomes her and she grins in enjoyment at the memories of the various crimes committed. The thrill of the next killer makes her feel alive and young again, so much so that she revels in it. Then suddenly she is in a bleak room of solid white. The walls comprised solidly of white cushions with no doors and windows, save a lonely flat screen TV just above head height. Around her torso and restricting her arms is an inescapable straight jacket. Projected on the TV are all the colleagues she knows, superiors and otherwise. The ensemble is pointing at her with disgusted looks, a brilliant detective no longer. All they see is a mentally disturbed person before them. Then all the criminals Agent Young has ever put away file into the room with her colleagues. Together they yell at her, how foolish she is, how helpless, how crazy, how she is no better than the criminals she puts behind bars because of her demented mind. The cacophony of raised and disheartening voices eats at her until she falls to her knees whimpering.