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Chapter 6 of Tales of Woe

Angmallen, 28thof September, 11:13 am

I was sitting at my desk, having a conversation with someone that wasn't there. Don't get me wrong, I'm not insane, but all the officers think I am. I do this, I have talks with spirits and souls, they point me in the direction of evidence, explain to me what happened for certain cases, and quite frankly, they really let me get work done. In return, I offer them places in the next world.

See, I learned long ago in college, that my supposed schizophrenia wasn't just schizophrenia, but that there was meaning to it. See, I was clever enough to discern reality from fallacy pretty easily, but I noticed that these things interacted with other people. Some of my college friends caught on, tried to kill me- long story cut short, cults aren't fun- and I ended up with some good arcane experience under my belt.

The only college friend of mine who hadn't tried to kill me was Cipher. He was smart, clever, and older than any other student there. See, thanks to my ability to see all magical energies and auras in the world, there were some disguises that were clearly fake, usually because the person was surrounded in a strange cloud of color, I'd ignore the color, and see the truth. Cipher was one of these guys, and his disguise fooled everyone- including me- until I found out about magic.

The year was '84, he claimed to be in his twenties, his partially grayed fur and mane suggested an age more like sixty. I pointed this out, and explained how I knew. He told me I had a gift, a gift that most people couldn't understand. I was "one of a kind- probably." I didn't care, a little appreciation was nice after having fourteen men and thirteen women try to kill me. He showed me some book he had, and flipped through it to see if I could see anything.

"Of course, I can, it's just a book. Or is it magical?" I threw in a hint of sarcasm into that question, knowing full well it was.

"Yeah, only certain people can read it. Apparently you're one of them. So, do you have any magical ability?"

"Uh, did you see me the other night? Any ability I have is with that stupid flintlock pistol my grandfather gave me when I was a kid."

"Right, and I'll admit, it was pretty impressive, but that's not magic. I think. I don't know, I just got an Arcanomicon, so I'm also a little new to the whole thing."

"'Just got?' As in, I can just buy one?"

"Good god, no. I researched it by looking through those stupidly huge dictionaries-"

"Wait- people hide magical knowledge in dictionaries?"

"Duh. To the naked eye they're dictionaries, to someone like you or me they're documents explaining how to obtain an arcanomicon."

"... That's stupid."

"Well it's not any dictionary, it's only those really big ones in libraries- here, let me show you." He got up and left the table for a minute, then came back with a massive dictionary four inches thick. He dropped it on the table, making a huge thud that silenced the library, "So, if we open the front cover... Inside it says, 'Oxford Dictionary of the English Language'... 'and Compendium of Knowledge to the Aspiring Arcaneans.'"

"Arcaneans?"

"Yeah, it's a dumb word. I think they're just trying to avoid being stereotypical and saying something like wizard or witch."

"Sure... So how do you get an Arcanomicon?"

"Oh, it's pretty simple, you just need a book binding." He set his Arcanomicon on top of the dictionary. It's binding was leather with a brass disk on the front. Scrawled across in wacky letters was 'Arcanomicon', and in the center it had a single piece of fake jewelry, red in color, and sparkling brightly.

"A book cover and a shit ton of paper." I gestured to the inch of paper inside, and he rolled his eyes.

"That's the magical part. See, once I make the book cover, there's a certain spell I need to use to make it function as an arcanomicon, and then I can simply use other spells to pull chapters in and out of existence. Not at will, it needs the same stuff I had to write that with." He tapped the title, and I cocked my head to one side.

"Which is..."

"Anthran blood."

"What?!"

"I'm kidding! God, don't be so gullible. It just need some anthran cells. I used some of my blood from a scratch I picked at, mixed it with ink, got a crow feather, hardened it with magic, superheated the metal quill with more magic, and scrawled that onto the front."

Needless to say, I was fascinated. Throughout the year, he tried and tried to push me through some barrier in my mind, but I never found said barrier in the first place. He broke down one day and I didn't see him until the next morning, with me strapped to a table and him standing over me with a ball of fire in hand. I couldn't move or do anything to defend myself as he started burning my fur and flesh. He stopped within ten seconds, though, claiming that if that wasn't the kind of thing to push me through the barrier he didn't know what was. I wondered about magic for a while and realized what the barrier was. I willed myself through it, and found that on the other side I was weaker and more vulnerable than ever. He tried to find some "strength" and got to the point where he claimed my strength was sight and perception, then gave up with all his madness.

Nowadays I indulge in my abilities to communicate with- and understand- the world unseen to common men and women. I shifted my weight in the chair as the spirit continued to speak.

I'd become good friends with this lost soul, knowing him better than anyone. His name had been Salai, and quite frankly he could be annoying, but what did it matter? Any case involving a gay man was covered by him. Some of the men in the department were users of magic, anyways, and knew damn well that I was talking to ghosts for evidence.

And while we had to pull bullshit out of our asses to explain stuff sometimes, it wasn't entirely difficult, being that most people didn't bother covering their tracks, and if they do, our school districts need a hefty some of extra funding, because some of them are just asking to be caught. Usually it'll be a statement against homosexuality or homophobia, but occasionally personal matters press charge and we get ensnared in anthran lives.

Salai shifted in his chair and the dark grey fusky's tail waved back and forth across the floor as he spoke, "So- that dragon that ended up in the basement-"

"Right- right, I know, his body was maimed and full of, well, you know-"

"Yeah, I watched them fill him. Lucky bastard-"

"Luck?! They filled him with water, it's like he drowned through his ass! ... Wait, watched?"

"Yeah, killer was some wolf or something, he had a kind of tuft on his neck like a mane, cute, but that ass just felt like killing him for no reason."

"Hm... You know who he was?"

"No, why would I?"

"Because you know everything."

"No, Cid knows everything, I know a lot."

"Speaking of Cid, have you talked to him recently?"

"No, and even if I had, I wouldn't tell you how reincarnation or immortality work." The office door flew open and I shifted in my seat as Seth burst through the door and sat in Salai's seat, who fell through the seat with a hushed grunt.

"Oh, let yourself in why don't you? No, I wasn't talking to a witness or anything, just go ahead and waltz right in-"

"Shut the fuck up, Ang! I don't have time. Listen, I need to know where Psijius is."

"What? No, don't worry about it, he's in prison-"

"Oh, that prison he escaped?!"

"What."

Salai sat down in Seth's lap, who was completely stunned and shocked by the sudden appearance of a ghost in his lap, "You're the ass who took my spot."

Seth shifted in his chair, "Uhh... How 'bout that. I'm talking to a ghost. ... Could you move?"

"Seth, this is Salai, you remember the renaissance, right?"

"I was only born seventy years ago, god, I'm not that old." He shoved Salai off him and leaned across the table, "Whose Salai?"

"Leonardo's apprentice. Gayest person since before you showed up."

Salai put his hands on his hips, "Are you kidding me? Cid got himself passed around while he was enslaved at Hammurabi's palace and I'm the one who's called gay? Seriously, that guy's hardcore. He took on two giraffes at once, and let me tell you, it's a wonder that's not what killed him."

"Oh, so he tells you about being a faggot-"

Seth snapped his fingers at me, "Bad choice of words."

"Right, sorry. Salai doesn't care about that language. Uh, he tells you about his sex stories but he doesn't explain something as trivial as immortality?"

"What the fuck are you smoking? Immortality's easy. Kill a man and use what was left of their lifespan to extend your life."

"What."

"Or other animals. I worked at trying to find sea turtles when I was in my fifties, and went ahead and killed like twelve of them. I'm basically immortal. That's like, what, a thousand something years?"

"Probably a lot more."

"Hm, whatever. Natural lifespans are easy to cheat. It's Cid who isn't, and then there's always pure whims. I actually tried tethering my soul to something in the Tock once, but I screwed up and tethered it to my left pointer finger. Let's just say it was a bad year to volunteer as a construction engineer."

"Heh, really? Did you get cancer for cutting it off or something?"

"No, I got cancer for picking at the skin around my nail, I broke fifteen ribs when I slammed a hammer on it."

"Oh, damn. And this was when?"

"Twenties. Yeah, life was fun. God dammit! We need to find Psijius!"

"Okay! Jeez, you're the one who made me forget..."