The Paranormal Bureau was desolate despite the blistering sunlight streaming in, and it made Jonathan wonder if anyone in that department actually did their job. Of course, most of the agents were just normal cops who juggled multiple positions at the same time, but it was times like these that he would be grateful to at least have a little help.
So as it was, he had to settle for scrolling through internal archives and rummaging through dusty old case files by himself.
Jonathan’s expression hardened, silently shaking out Anya’s last words to him while he scrutinised the details in those files. Harsh as her words may have been, she wasn’t wrong. Thirty-five years on this Earth, and all he ever did was live day to day while winging everything else. No wonder Anya lost faith in him.
He blinked the blurriness in his eyes away, before focusing on the words again. This was no time to mope. Anya can hear his apology after he saved her soul.
Unlike most case files, these old cases read more like urban legends than actual incident reports. There was simply too little information to go on with, and too much speculation which only further blurred the truth within. Such was almost always the problem with cold cases like this, which was also why they remained as such.
Still, he was an ex-informant. And a damn good one, if he didn’t hesitate to boast. If there was something he was good at, it was extracting information from even the most obscure of sources.
Electricity fed into his brain, energising him further as he opened the first file of several hundred. ‘Marion Caimbeul’ was the first name that greeted him, followed by her date of death. Jonathan took a deep breath and read on.
And on, and on, and on.
It felt like only a minute had passed when the pale moonlight found its way onto his desk. The chair creaked as Jonathan got up to turn the lights on, his head buzzing with new information. He pulled out a blank notebook and began noting down everything he had deduced so far.
Most of the information he had gleaned already matched with what he knew. But according to the archives, the victims went from being killed to simply dying in their sleep about sixty years ago. He wasn’t sure if it was related, but this seemed to have coincided with Mylis Wright’s estimated date of death as well.
To make things more suspicious, the circumstances in which the victims died in their sleep were remarkably similar to how Anya ‘died’ too.
Jonathan finished up the last of his scrawlings before resting his head on his palm. If he had deduced correctly, Anya must have also fallen victim to some sort of soul-extraction magic. Lucy and Cornelia, on the other hand, could only be killed by another method since they do not possess a conventional soul.
The last question left in his mind, and undoubtedly the biggest one, was why. Why kill all those people? Why hunt down all these victims over several hundred years?
Why hurt those he cared about?
Jonathan tossed a glance at Angus’ spellbook once again. Part of him wanted to simply begin the ritual and continue his investigation. But an even bigger part of him was afraid of whatever lay at the other end of the summoning portal. He couldn’t fathom seeing that old hag again without trying to beat her up for hurting Anya. And so he did what anyone would have done to cool himself off.
He laid his head on the table and took a nap.
~ ~ ~
“I do.”
Applause erupted as the unfamiliar face leaned closer to him and planted a deep kiss on his lips. Jonathan tried to jerk his head back to no avail as darkness enveloped his eyes, leaving behind nothing but the blissful feeling of the woman’s tight embrace.
“I love you, Duncan,” the woman whispered, her voice soaked with joy.
“And I you, Marion.” A feathery voice emanated from Jonathan in return.
Like the dreams he had been having for the past few days, Jonathan was unable to move his body from his point of view, and could only watch from behind the eyes of an unfamiliar person. In this case, this man was apparently named Duncan.
Soft skin wrapped around his forearm, and Jonathan found himself being led through a crowd. People congratulated him from every corner, some even with tears in their eyes. His head tilted to his bride again, and she gazed back at him with a bright smile.
Recognition rang in his mind as the woman’s forehead met his lips. Jonathan gasped silently in realisation. He had seen her before in a reconstructed sketch.
This ‘Marion’ woman was one of the victims.
Jonathan struggled even harder against Duncan’s body, but he remained a slave to it. It was obvious now that this was some sort of memory and not any ordinary dream. The Ghost Of Glasgow could be in the crowd right now, if only he could just walk around and inspect the environment.
An idea popped into his head. He didn’t know if he remembered the proper process well enough, considering his lack of aptitude for studying, but it was worth a shot.
His mind twitched, grasping onto the faint traces of a rope mentally constructed just above him. It was neither solid nor liquid and felt more like a very soft piece of fabric instead of a typical rope. But it was not the rope that mattered. Rather, it was what was attached to it that he focused more on.
And he pulled down on it, gently but surely. Lightheadedness hit him almost immediately, but it only affirmed how solid the anchor on the other end was. Jonathan squinted his eyes against the glaring light; he was almost there. And he tugged hard.
Solid ground greeted his back as he fell over his feet. Jonathan stood up and looked around him. Duncan was still locked in a lively chat with his family. Jonathan grinned in satisfaction.
He had successfully astral-projected his lucid form out of that man’s body.
Jonathan wasted no time, taking a stroll around the mediaeval wedding. As expected, none of the occupants could see him, which only further affirmed that this was no mere dream. Someone was definitely trying to show him something.
The first thing he took note of was the year. Or rather, a rough approximation of it, since it was written in the old style. He found it to be somewhere in the fifteenth century, which coincided with the victim’s death date. If he wasn’t wrong, Marion Caimbeul was due to be murdered just a few months later.
“Why are you showing me a wedding?” Jonathan muttered to the oblivious bride. “What are you trying to tell me?”
The hairs on the back of his neck stood on their end without warning. He turned around, noticing a female figure staring in his direction. Her glare was getting painful, so he quickly moved out of the way.
Only to see her head turning in his direction.
A chill went down his spine as he walked closer to identify her, but her face only became more blurry the closer he got to her. It felt like he was zooming in on a video. Jonathan squinted at the strange black marking on the side of her face. Is… is that—
“You should not be here.”
He swung around in shock. Marion was standing unnaturally close to him with a deadened expression in her eyes.
“W— What…” Jonathan sputtered, but she took another step towards him. Heads turned towards him one by one like mechanical dolls as the guests started closing in on him as well. He tried to back away, but the people were forming a wall around him as if blocking him from something else.
“Go away… Go away…” they chanted almost in unison while Jonathan looked around frantically, only then realising that both Duncan and the mysterious woman were missing.
“Run, my love!” Marion seized him roughly, screaming in his face. “She is after you! RUN! RUN! RUN! RUN! RUN! RUN—”
~ ~ ~
“Gah!”
Jonathan woke up with a jolt, sweeping the documents off his desk in a frenzy. He panted, his face flushed with sweat as he picked the scattered papers off the ground. He took his time to tidy them while organising the thoughts in his mind.
The things that have been happening to him were strange, even for someone so deeply involved with the paranormal world. Ghosts of the deceased that remained in this world after so many years were rare, even more so for them to contact a mortal via dreams.
Besides, if Marion Caimbeul had intended to show him her memory, why was she so hostile to him in the dream? And if that memory indeed belonged to her, why was he viewing it from her husband’s perspective?
Unless… that memory really belonged to Duncan Caimbeul instead.
The memories of past lives are also stored in souls, as he had read in the archives a while back. Could the reason behind his hallucinations and those strange dreams be related to the memories in his soul?
Jonathan shook his head; this was no time to speculate about the supernatural. Clear and present was getting Anya’s soul back into her body. He reached for the ritual spellbook and flipped it open casually.
Complicated diagrams and scrawlings stared him back in the face. He was no magic academic, but the symbols in the ritual clearly hinted at the use of dark magic, this much he was certain. He needed help, and he knew just who to get it from. He could only hope that she had not forgotten how to use dark magic as well.
The man pulled out his phone, only to be greeted by seventeen missed calls from Lucy as well as a single text message which read ‘Help’.
His heart dropped.26Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjkl5sZZuAz
