Jonathan found himself staring blankly at a white wall, ignoring the peculiar gazes of the even more strange-looking hospital occupants. A small part of him wanted to simply speed up and go for a run to clear his head; to somehow find an answer to his predicament.
But taking laps around the country wouldn’t exactly help his situation now, and he didn’t want to fall back into his old habit of running away from problems.
He put his hand on the room window, feeling its cold surface do nothing to soothe his worry. Demonic symbols surrounded the solitary hospital bed. Talismans pulsated as dark magic flowed from them into the veins of the woman. Her face was serene, almost as if she was merely sleeping. Well, except for the two huge holes in her head that were closing way too slowly.
The faint reflection of a young man came up on the window.
“If it’s any comfort, she’ll live,” Angus, in his now eighteen-year-old body, muttered in Jonathan’s ear. “But her body needs time to heal. Whatever struck her, it wasn’t meant to be fatal.”
“Not fatal?” Jonathan turned to the changeling. “I’m no expert, but I’m pretty sure a silver bullet to a vampire’s head was meant to kill.”
“There was protection magic around the bullet wound, Warner. If it was an ordinary silver bullet, Carpenter would’ve been in oblivion before her body hit the floor.”
Jonathan pursed his lips wordlessly. He wasn’t in the mood to argue with a fae about the semantics of magic. All he wanted was to stop this psycho-hunter from hurting those he cared about.
“Look, I don’t know what you’ve gotten yourself into,” Angus began. “But—”
“A serial murderer,” Jonathan answered flatly. “Someone or something is hunting us down for some reason.”
Angus folded his arms. “So I’ve heard. Cornelia’s death was particularly upsetting to me. The last Dryad on Earth… gone just like that. Did you wrong somebody?”
“What?” Jonathan took a step back in shock. “I don’t think so?”
“Well, there is one thing suspiciously in common between Lucy and Cornelia. Both of them are related to you.”
Jonathan paused for a moment, thinking hard. Thin as it may seem, that correlation had its merits. The sniper he had almost caught could clearly wield some sort of magic too. Either that or it wasn’t even a living entity to begin with, considering how its body seemed to be untraceable. But still, something did not add up.
“That’s… not true,” Jonathan began slowly. “Ever heard of the ‘Ghost Of Glasgow’? Before Cornelia died, she was branded by its symbol. That serial murderer was already operating seven hundred years ago, and I was only born thirty-five years ago. How can those murders be related to me?”
“The Ghost Of Glasgow…” It was Angus’ turn to muse. “I’ve heard of it, but I never really knew the details. I believe the spate of murders started taking place during the thirteen hundreds when I had barely just hatched. I was pretty much the equivalent of a teenager, so I wasn’t affected. By the time I was fully mature and ready to swap souls, the Ghost Of Glasgow had already faded into urban legend.”
Jonathan leaned against the wall, tapping his head lightly against it.
“But… I have a contact if you’re interested,” Angus stated flatly, breaking the all-too-brief silence. “You might find her ‘name’ familiar. Baba Yaga.”
“The Baba Yaga?” Jonathan’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. “As in that infamous Slavic witch who eats children? How many creatures in folklore are actually real?”
“More than you’d want to know. Anyway, Baba Yaga is the only one who survived an attack from the Ghost Of Glasgow.” Angus snapped his fingers, conjuring a business card. “Here’s her address. This card is charmed to reveal her location at all times. It was her way of showing her trust in me when she gave this to me, so I do hope you’d take this as a sign of trust from me to you as well.”
Jonathan received it hesitantly. “Look Angus, about Cornelia…”
“Shit happens. Just make sure you wipe. I’m not blaming you,” Angus said in an uncharacteristically brash tone. “Baba Yaga has been locked up in a psychiatric ward ever since the attack, so do approach the subject carefully. It might be best to bring your partner with you.”
“Are you insinuating that I need help just to record a testimony?”
Angus smiled slightly and walked away without a further word.
~ ~ ~
Anya typed away on her computer, the small window of light illuminating the look of concentration on her face as she squinted at the various symbols on her screen. She sighed, closing yet another open tab.
Despite spending close to five hours on her research, all she had were archaeological findings of these historical artefacts. There were a few other hits, but they all turned out to be blatantly false conspiracy theories.
Anya glanced at the cobalt blue orb on her table. It looked plain enough. Only a simple glyph was carved onto its surface, and its pulsating was so faint that only those who bothered to look could tell that it was magic.
Her hand hovered over the device for a moment.
“This had better be worth it,” the woman muttered to herself, taking out a small knife from her drawer. She winced as the cold blade slit the tip of her index finger.
Blood dripped onto the orb as the relic on her neck glowed fiercely. This ritual was troublesome, but it was the best the Scottish Witch Market could offer, along with the necklace that gave her access to basic magic.
Anya muttered an incantation, magically sealing up the small cut on her finger with her thumb. She waited for a few more seconds.
A tail sprouted from the orb and reshaped itself into something resembling a USB plug. Anya wasted no time, plugging the tail into her computer. Glowing symbols flashed around the orb as it attuned to the machine. Her computer shut down.
And booted up again almost immediately.
This time, it was filled with handwritten scrawls that floated around the screen like fish in an overcrowded pond. Magic symbols overlay the alphabet on her keyboard as well, pulsating slightly through the glare of Anya’s third eye.
She typed in a combination of keystrokes, and the scrawls rearranged themselves on command. A new web page popped up. Anya’s lips curved into a wide smile; the magic deep web was certainly much more useful than the regular one.
Images and videos popped up on the screen as she continued scrolling. Most of which are eyewitness memories of the gruesome murders, which only further affirmed that she was on the right track. There were other random gore videos as well, but those were clearly unrelated to the branding murders.
“The Ghost Of Glasgow,” Anya whispered to herself, noticing the pattern of tags. “I wonder…”
She typed in the phrase. A new set of links showed up this time. They looked strangely organised this time, as though someone had been investigating this same case as well. Anya clicked on the folder labelled ‘Journal Entries’ in Russian.
More squiggles of Russian words greeted her, and Anya silently thanked her ancestors for being born Slavic as well.
“Bozhe moy…” She scrolled through the disturbingly vivid accounts of the murder. Whoever consolidated the cases certainly spared no effort recording the manner of death, as well as the intimate details of the victims.
Anya’s eyes narrowed as she flipped through the cases in rapid succession, until she reached the last entry dated about sixty years ago.
“Why…” She tilted her head. “Why are all the victims… female?”
The keyboard clacked loudly as Anya typed in a rapid succession of keystrokes, downloading the files into the computer. She glanced at the screen, waiting impatiently for the files to convert to printable documents. With these documents, all she needed to do was trace the digital signature to find out who uploaded them—
“Hang on…” she breathed, squinting at the small Russian initial at the bottom of the page. “Does… does that say ‘Natasha’?”
A cold breeze brushed behind her. The lights flickered slightly. Anya tensed up, feeling a strange presence in her house.
Her computer shut itself down without warning.
“What—”
The woman cringed in pain as her third eye opened forcefully in warning. Wind howled around her as though she was in the middle of a blizzard. Whatever entity was causing all this, it wasn’t messing around.
Cold metal met her fingertips and Anya pulled out her gun immediately, aiming it everywhere. Her third eye flashed furiously, trying its best to locate the spirit. Or poltergeist. Or whatever the hell this was. An anguished scream rang out from behind.
Anya spun around just in time to gasp at a demonic-looking face swooping towards her.
She fired the gun, but the glowing bullets simply went through the mutilated, ghostly figure. Pain shot through her back as air burst from her mouth. Anya stood up gingerly, leaning against the wall for support. She flinched as the spirit rushed towards her again, but it didn’t attack this time.
A searing glow repelled the entity. It took Anya a few frantic seconds to notice that it was coming from her necklace.
“Leave him alone!” the spirit finally screamed in her face, before vanishing into the air as abruptly as it arrived.
Anya breathed heavily, massaging her temples as her vision slowly refocused itself. “Ngh… what the hell was that— Oh no!”
She rushed to the orb beside the computer. Its tail was severed, leaving behind a pitiful—looking stump. The orb was also damaged beyond repair and was no longer glowing. To make matters worse, her computer screen was dark as well. Anya held her breath as she pressed the power button, praying that it would come back on.
The screen lit back up soon enough. Frantic clicks permeated the silent room as she accessed her saved files desperately, searching for the downloaded files.
But they were no longer there.26Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHSWhycjeTT
