Chapter 1

Not all murders are simple and not all pasts are easy to forget

Chapter 1

 

His name was Ganiver Harries. He was a hundred year old demon who worked as an assistant manager at a trading company in the East of Ashaie. He had worked there for three years and was expected to take over as senior manager by next month. If he had stuck around longer he would have become one of the partners in the company by next year. Everyone at his work place knew Ganiver Harries as a quiet but sociable friendly man who was a brilliant and diligent worker. Yet none of them knew anything much about his private life. Some said he was married, some thought he was the youngest son of some noble family. There was a rumour that he an outcast from the old blood clans.

None of the rumours came close to the truth.

On the night of December the 4^th year 7895 Ganiver Harries left his small apartment near the park and headed down the street to the bus stop. He boarded the ten 0’clock night bus and got off at the last stop which was Faronon square in the north of the city near the Lords palace. There was another man waiting for him at the bus stop who greeted him quietly before they headed across the street and into an alley where they disappeared into darkness.

When Ganiver Harries appeared again on the bus stop he wasn’t alone. Unlike before, this time it was a stranger dressed all in black with dark hair and lazy brown eyes. He had a book in his right hand which he read absorbingly and thus more or less ignored Harries’s presence. Harries didn’t mind being ignored even though he thought it was pretty rude of the boy.

It was well past twelve, about the time when the last bus usually appears in the square to make a final round, but tonight it was late. Feeling a little irritated by the delay, Ganiver Harries decided to walk home instead of waiting any longer than he needed to. He glanced worriedly at the young man before he left before concluding that the boy looked old enough and sturdy enough to defend himself on the streets if he needed to.

Ganiver Harries, being a native of Ashaie, knew all the twisting shortcuts within the city like the back of his hand. He knew which route was the safest and the quickest route back to his apartment. He knew which alley way would lead to the front gate of the palace or which turn in the corner would lead him to the back door of the barracks which housed the Lords soldiers and if rumours are to be believed, the ancient society of the Black Knights.

It was when he was turned a corner of a street which disappeared into between two large building complex’s did he notice the bird following him. When he moved, it moved with him. When he stopped it stopped with him. It was never far from him and it did nothing to keep itself hidden. It was more likely that the bird was trying to get his attention as it sat on top of a street lamp where the light revealed its small form and dark feathers. At first Harries thought it was a crow but it looked too small to be a crow. A raven perhaps.

‘What in the name of Ashaie are you doing out at this time of night?’ Harries asked the creature with slight amusement.

The raven turned its little head towards him and locked its beady black eyes on to him like a cat homing on its prey. Harries felt a cold sweat run down his spine and he shivered. When he breathed out, his breath came out like a white wisp of smoke from his mouth.

‘What the hell!’ Harries hugged himself as the air around him turned freezing cold. It seeped into his flesh like a knife and dug into his bone. Harries was suddenly very afraid. He couldn’t explain way but when he looked up at the Raven again he knew that he was going to die tonight.

When he heard the sound of footsteps coming up behind him he turned his head around in alarm and gasped loudly when he saw that it was the lazy eyed young man.

‘You alright man?’ The young demon asked carelessly.

Not wanting to appear foolish, Harries dropped his arms from his chest and told the young demon that he was fine.

‘Are you lost?’ The young man asked him simply.

‘No…I..ah…’ Harries frowned at the boy. Did he follow me?

‘You look really pale man. Maybe you shouldn’t be wandering around so much.’ The young demon took a step closer.

‘Don’t come any closer!’ Harries snapped and took out his gun. He aimed it at the boys head and barred his sharp teeth. ‘Who the f**k are you?’

When the young man ignored him and took another step closer, Harries shot him between the eyes. The boy dropped dead in three seconds with a shocked expression on his face. Harries rushed over to his side and began searching his person for some kind of identification. The boy must have been an agent from the Rikai mob. They must have found out about Harries real identity and sent this boy to kill him or spy on him whichever it may be, Harries would have to abandon the mission and become completely untraceable. The Rikai mob are very resourceful when it comes to revenge. If they know they’ve been fooled by an inferior employee off one of their subsidiaries they will stop at nothing to make Harries pay for embarrassing them. If they find him, they will torture him and then dump him in the Pit in 8^th realm to be used as a toy for the exiles amusement.

Harries didn’t find anything on the boy’s body except for a pack of cigarettes and lighter and small silver flask which had a cross cut into its front with a knife or a blade. The shape of the cross made Harries wander where he had seen it before. The flask, unlike the rest of his possession, looked moderately expensive and felt full in Harrries hands. It seemed a shame to just to leave it with a dead corpse.

‘I’ll be taking this buddy. Thanks.’ Harries patted the boys cheeks as he stuffed the flask into his jacket pocket when suddenly the boys eyes snapped open and his hand shot out to grip Harries wrist hard which made him drop the flask.

‘That wasn’t very nice.’ The boy said emotionlessly and sat up. The raven flew over their head and landed on the boys shoulder. It fixed its beady dark eyes with Harries own and told him that his end has finally come.

 

 

The summon arrived in the form of a customer returning a book which he had bought not a few days before today. He was a good looking demon with handsome features and good manners. He looked like he came from a good family somewhere outside the city, maybe from another realm of the  demon world. A student of one of the many prestigious colleges within Ashaie.

The book he had bought was called “The many natures of Dragons and their masters”, indicating that he was interested in something that every other young demon his age were overly curious about. Its been ten years since the Draco clan had cut its ties with the seven realm, thus severing the public from the view of their magnificent dragons and their riders. All that remained of them were pictures and stories written by people who had once lived there before they had been forced to leave and those were exceedingly popular with the younglings.

So when the boy came back to return the book, Marcos was surprised.

‘Is something wrong with it?’ He had asked the boy with a frown on his face. ‘Is it missing some pages?’

‘No its not that. I just realized that I’m too old to be reading about Dragons.’ The boy shrugged and smiled as he held the book out for Marcos to take. When Marcos reached out to take it he noticed the linings of a black envelope sticking out of the end of the book. Marcos didn’t need to think twice to know that the envelope wasn’t there by accident and it didn’t belong to the boy either.

‘Thank you for your patronage master.’ Marcos bid the young man goodbye without looking up at him as he left the shop. The young man politely bowed his head a little in respect before leaving. When he was finally gone, Marcos opened the book and grimaced unhappily at the black envelope. ‘They recruit them so young.’ He signed like an old man before he tucked the envelope into his trouser pocket and went into the back room.

‘Alcor, take over the shop from me.’ He informed his young shop assistant who was just coming out of the bathroom in the corridor leading to the Marcos private study. He was young but not as young as that boy. Alcor was 67 years old, with light chestnut brown skin, dark brown hair and big green eyes which made his face look boyish. His ears were pierced with two silver rings on each.

‘Are you heading out?’ Alcor asked.

‘I have something I need to do.’ Marcos answered. ‘It wont be long.’

Alcor didn’t ask any further questions and headed out to the counter to greet their newest customer.

Inside his study, which was a small room with a fire place, a single desk, two shelves and an armchair before the fire place, he closed the shutters and locked the doors. He did  not do this out of paranoia but simply as a routine for caution.

Rekindling the fire place, he dragged up his armchair near it and sat down with the black envelope in his lap. It was a simple black envelope with no outer decoration or crests on front to indicate where and from whom it had come from. There were no return address marked nor a mailing address. With another sign as heavy as a dead mans last breath, he used one fine claw of his hand and ripped the envelope open swiftly. He read the contents and then burned it in the fireplace.

Outside he heard the sound of the bookstore door open and Alcors’s cheery greeting. He sat inside his dark study for a long while before he brushed himself down and went back to work.

 

 

Rentar morgue was a dull building shaped like a large square box with too few windows. The outside had no colour and nor did the interior where everything was a shade of sharp silver and white. There were a few potted plants but none of them managed to lighten the air around the place which smelled strongly of disinfectant and death.

Death itself was an alien concept for demons. They can live for many years, young and strong, until the end of time if they’re careful. Medical advancements have made away with the diseases which once plagued them. Academic and technological advancement had made sure all the dangerous work were done by machines and there was no longer any need for every demon in the realm to carry swords on their hips. Old traditions have been abandoned and bloodshed was reduced to a minimum. The very nature of demons changed.

But only fools think themselves immortal in this world. Demons are not immortal. They are as mortal as humans. If you cut them they will bleed. If you hurt them they will feel pain. If you stab them in the heart, they will die. And when they do, they are brought here. To this dismal, sad, building where they are frozen in boxes and wait patiently for somebody to come and tell them how they died.

The body Ganiver Harries was being autopsied in a private ward in the east side of the complex reserved for those who come from affluent families or nobles. This lent fuel to the rumour that Ganiver Harries was from one such family and everyone who knew him at work began to construct new theories as to why he chose to work at such a small company and who he was. Maybe he had been the unfavoured son of a noble man. Maybe he was banished from his clan for some heinous crime. Perhaps he was a part of an secret organization sent over to spy on them and maybe that’s why his body was being so closely guarded.

Unsupervised rumours tend to come very close to the truth.

It was unfortunate that the Watch had found his body first. At the wee hours of the morning when sensible demons would be asleep in their beds, a young teen of seventeen was returning home from a late party at a friend house and chose to take a short cut back home. Ashie is filled with narrow alley ways and back roads and tunnels that leads to one place or another and they are frequently used by smugglers, murderers, serial killers, rapists, thieves and teenagers.  When she turned a corner where two apartment complexes formed a dark alley she noticed a black blob which she first though was garbage. When she came closer her sensitive nose smelt blood and when she drew in so close that her feet were only a few inches away from it, she realised that it was a man laying face up with his mouth open like a fish trying to breathe and his eyes wide with shock and fear. She realised that he was dead when she saw the gaping hole in his chest where his heart once was.

The sound of her scream woke up everyone in a radius of five miles from where she was and alerted a Watch patrol who came rushing over to see what wrong. When they saw the body, they immediately alerted their headquarters. The large gathering of Watch officers drew in curious spectators some of who were news or tabloid reporters living in the twin complexes. The news of Ganiver Harries’s death was front page in the Daily Demons and New State, two of the most read papers in Ashaie, and it was headline news in the major news channels in the realms. Suddenly the simple manager of a small company who had nothing remotely interesting about him, was the talk of everyone in the city.

Truly unfortunate.

 

At the doors of autopsy room number 5 stood a large demon with sliver scaled skin and dark storm blue eyes which can bend steel with one glare, his blue uniform introduced him as a Watch official and the badges on his chest showed off his rank in the organization but the grim expression on his face was enough to state his power of authority around the place. He looked like a demon who has never smiled much in his hundred years or found little reason to do so.

‘Nice to see you again, General Draco.’ Marcos greeted as pleasantly as he could manage to a man who wanted to gut him and hang his carcass on the gates of his family palace in the seventh realm.  He was one of the few Dracos who had stayed back in Ashaie therefore condemning himself to self exile from his own home. Marcos wandered if the man ever regretted that decision.

‘You’re late.’ General Draco grunted before he pushed through the double doors of the autopsy room.

Marcos checked his watch and rolled his eyes discreetly behind the Generals back.

The room had no windows, everything along with the walls and the floors were steel panelled. One wall had five refrigeration units, along with a contaminated corpse chamber. A sanitization chamber was attached to the opposite wall, with a bathroom . A cabinet of high end tools sat near the table where the corpse lay.

‘It’s cold.’ Marcos remarked blandly.

‘We’ve tried raising the temperature but it keeps going down.’ The General grunted.

‘Was the crime scene covered in ice?’ Asked Marcos.

‘Everything frozen solid. The people in the twin apartment buildings thought it was a sudden change in weather what with climate change.’ The General took his place beside the body while Marcos stood on the other side, keeping Harris between them. ‘But then again you knew that.’

‘Do we have to fight every time we meet?’ Marcos grimaced. ‘It’s souring our relationship.’

‘As you can see most of his body is practically unharmed. No signs of a struggle or signs of a fight.’ The General carried on, ignoring Marcos. ‘The rest of his organs are still intact except, of course, for his heart.’

‘Fine ignore me!’ Marcos rolled his eyes. ‘Any marks on his body?’

‘None.’

‘Tattoo?’ Marcos asked looking over Harries’s pale naked body. He paid close attention to his feet. The Rikai mob had a habit of marking their victims with the lotus symbol on their feet.

‘None.’

‘That’s a shame then.’ Marcos pulled on a pair of gloves and prodded the gaping hole over Harries’s chest. There was no blood except for the congealed bit around the round wound. From a closer it looked like his heart had been torn right out of his chest which would have normally caused massive amounts of blood loss but all the vessels were already frozen solid for that to happen. It was the same with the last fifteen of the murders and Harries was no different.

‘He was one of you.’ The General said coldly.

‘I wouldn’t be here for any murder, General.’ Marcos said distractedly as he fingered a torn muscle.

‘Why is he dead?’ The General asked.

‘Because someone killed him.’ Marcos answered simply.

‘He was a spying on the Rikai mob wasn’t he?’ The General asked. ‘But it wasn’t the mob that killed him.’

‘A piece of advice, General.’ Marcos said distractedly as he fingered as piece of muscle inside the chest wound. ‘Stay out of our business. It doesn’t concern you.’

‘Everything that happens in my city concerns me.’ The General stated sternly. ‘You know who killed him and why. Tell me.’

Marcos straightened and began to take of his gloves, satisfied with his inspection of the wound, which were barely stained with blood. ‘I wish I could. I really do.’ Marcos gave the general his most sincerest look. ‘But unfortunately I can’t.’

‘You don’t know.’ The General said it as more of statement than a question before he smirked a little. ‘You have absolutely no idea.’

Marcos’s face betrayed no emotion but under the cover of the table his hands curled into tight balls. ‘You are free to interpret it as you want but again, this isn’t your concern. As far as things goes for you and the other regular populace, Harries was murdered at the dead of the night by a violent mugger who the Watch, that is you, will be extensively searching for.’

‘But we’ll never find him.’ The General grimaced.

Marcos smiled a cold smile. ‘Exactly.’

‘I am not willing to sacrifice the reputation of the Watch for you worms!’ the General snapped angrily.

‘In a few months the people will forget about what happened to one merger soul and move on. You’ll be surprised how quickly irrelevant memories fade from one’s mind.’ Marcos said offhandedly. ‘Then again, the Watch doesn’t have much reputation left to sacrifice.’ As soon as those words were out of his mouth he regretted them immediately. He said them in the heat of them moment, without thinking. It was stupid. Very, very stupid.

The scales around the Generals neck shimmered as his jaw tightened and his eyes turned bright silver. Wisps of green flame began peeking through the Generals lips and his nostrils.

Apologies. Apologies you idiot before he breaths fire at you! But Marcos hung onto his stubborn nature and refused to utter a word of apology.

Surprisingly the General showed great restraint in his anger. He took in one deep breath and signed a heavy sign. ‘I suppose you’re right.’ The General smiled a humour less smile which did nothing to remove the hardness of his face. ‘We’re not what we used to be. Not after what you’ve done to us. My family. You remember them don’t you?’

Without meaning to Marcos grew deathly pale. His hands began to grow sweaty and his heart began to race inside his chest. ‘I�"

‘But then again I cant expect compassion from someone who has died long before my time.’ The General chuckled a grim chuckled before he left Marcos alone in the autopsy room feeling like a murderer and colder than the corpse itself.

 

 

Author's Note

Hope you like the change