Jonathon Worthington: Strangelight Investigator

Case #18: The Mystery of the Purloined Past (Chapter 2)

The brigand's death-scream was cut short as hot blood sprayed out from his throat all over me, fountaining from a jagged hole that erupted from his larynx.

Spectral steel whispered close to my fingers without opening them, causing me to yank my hand back from his chin with a yelp of fright. As the dead weight of the man slumped forward, choking me with both his mass and the torrential flow of blood soaking me, a part of my mind took note of the blood-outlined shape of a blade tip sliding out of the brigand's neck. An irritated flick that sprayed crimson droplets over the hard ground removed the bloody shape from my vision, rendering the weapon invisible again. A familiar shiver of pure cold dread spread through my body. I had encountered this phantasm before, and fear surged in my heart as I realized I had become too accustomed to her presence to feel the proper trepidation at her pursuit. I'd been too sloppy. She would punish me for that transgression.

Death had once more taken a direct hand in my fate.

Terror spread across my soul as I struggled to roll the dead man off of me. His heart continued to pump uselessly, covering me in his life's blood as the vital muscle slowly realized its owner was deceased. I stared around wildly, taking stock of my situation, trying to see that which by its very nature could not be seen.

Dark whispers thrummed in the air, promising to fulfill my darkest and most sinful nightmares before the night claimed my cold corpse. The fog-shrouded streets echoed with Orsch's unseen struggles. Shapes I prayed were other brigands haunted the periphery of my vision.

I felt the scarlet tattoos surge, and as I looked down with disgust I understood why: my body was feasting. Before my eyes the blood soaking my clothes was drawn inwards by an unholy force, channeled into the arcane crimson marks that had risen to sate their terrible hunger. My body shed the last remnants of the stage makeup like a snake slithering out of old skin to reveal the terrible glory of the arcane markings that ran over my flesh. The corpse atop me pressed down with less weight, and with a sickened certainty I knew that were I to look closer I would discover that the crimson tattoos were leeching the remaining blood out of the dead man. The world quavered between the night and my sanguinary vision as the strange affliction attempted to take my sight and replace it with the ghoulish blood-sight I had not used since back at Outpost Five.

Managing to wriggle out from under the desiccating corpse I felt another voice join the whispers of death, a stronger one that called more insistently in a language made more of dark desire than of words. From across the distance I sensed the demonic pistol that had been stashed in our rooms, a mile away and uselessly out of reach. Remembering the damage it had done to Titan's abominations made me briefly yearn for its power in my hands now, no matter the cost.

Before I could leash my desires I felt the metal of the tiny holdout pistol in my hand warp with a sickening weight. The smell of blood lay heavy in the air as I looked down, knowing what I would find even before I did. Where before the fairly innocuous and sadly ineffective holdout pistol had rested there was now a large triangular fiend of a weapon, related to the previous pistol in the same way that a minnow is related to a monstrous hullgrinder. Orgoth sigils were carved into the barrel and the triangular gunblade that ran underneath from grip to barrel end, the symbols ancient, evil mirrors to the same scarlet tattoos that adorned my own body now. The three brass studs waited expectantly in the smooth wooden grip, cold and eager against my palm. I knew well enough their purpose: to bleed me for a shot powerful enough to make the Dragonfather dance to his grave.

I had summoned the demon pistol to my hand, twisting the little holdout weapon into something far worse.

The runed pistol lunged against the boundaries of my mind like a hungry dog at the end of its leash, straining to be let loose and to bring in the red harvest that struggled in the shadows around us. I knew that allowing such a beast to run free willingly would cost me a little more of my soul each time I let loose the chain. For every life the demon pistol took I would hunger for more until its dark urges consumed me, bending me to its terrible will. But I could still feel death haunting the area, swirling around me, unwilling to engage me while I held the very weapon she had granted me six months before. There was a price to pay for denying her the prize of my life once more. If I bled myself by allowing the weapon to drink of my lifeblood through the grip it was possible the demon within could locate my assailant. Even if I managed to triangulate death's position I sensed the pistol would consume a part of my soul to utilize its abilities. Could I so willingly fling myself into damnation, even for so essential a goal as destroying that which sought my own life?