Chapter 1 - A Riddle in Ink

It was regrettable, Eleanor Tregellan thought, how many days began like this. The ribs gave way with a wet sucking sound as the incision opened the peritoneal cavity, yielding access to the dark mass of organs within. The familiar reek of body fluids and the corruption of death filled the air, making her skin feel greasy even though it was completely covered. Ellie resisted the urge to draw her arm across her head, knowing that the gesture would cover her with gore and maybe worse besides. The basement morgue was a familiar location to her, both from her work for the Sunday Group and her long ago medical training. The floor was angled down slightly to a central drain and bright fluorescents hung on hinged arms overhead. A pair of examination tables, one of which held the body, dominated the room, flanked on all sides by smaller benches which held a variety of tools, both medical and arcane, as well as specimen trays, bottles, and the other various chemical agents used in a post mortem examination. Eleanor was dressed from head to toe in blue surgical scrubs and an examination gown of lurid green. Most of her face was concealed by her face mask, save for the goggles which covered her eyes and magnified the dusting of freckles across the bridge of her nose. A surgical cap compressed her dark auburn hair bulging up over the severe bun that kept it from her eyes.

“Zhou know ve could try to summon up hiss spirit,” a cultured Austrian accent observed. Ellie’s eyes flicked to the I-pad which was propped on one of the two surgical tables which occupied the improvised morgue. Emmaline von Morganstern’s heart shaped face bobbed up and down as she ran on her treadmill in their home twenty miles away from the Sunday Group offices. The face was much more pleasant than the inset of an open chest cavity that the camera was pointed at.

“Well that didn’t work so well the last time we tried it,” Ellie responded as she slid her gloved hand into the open chest and began to explore. The body was that of a young male, physically fit, shaved head but beyond that it was difficult to say too much about him. A black substance coated every inch of the body like tar. Not only did it coat the body, it seemed to impregnate it somehow. The teeth were completely black, save for a few fillings, not only on the surface, but in cross section. The eyes were black, as though the aqueous humors were somehow transformed, the blood, running down into collection channels as Ellie cut, was also dark as midnight.

“Vat do you fink it is? Vat does it smell like?” Emmaline asked. Ellie resisted the urge to roll her eyes.

“It smells like I just cut open a cadaver that has been dead for six to twelve hours, so not great,” Ellie deadpaned as she took a pair of forceps and clamped the top of the esophagus and the duodenum. Repeating the process above and below the first clamps with a second set of the stainless steel instruments.

“Yes you are very funny woman Eleanor,” Emmaline replied without humor, continuing to run. Ellie’s good genes meant that she didn’t have to do a tremendous amount of exercise to maintain her relatively slim figure, but Emmaline, whose appeties in all areas were considerable, had to fight the tendency towards fat as she got older. Ellie severed the esophagus with a practiced cut before doing the same to the intestine and then lifted the stomach out onto an examination tray. Releasing the forceps she began to squeeze the contents of the stomach out onto the tray.

“Zat is goot for my diet,” video Emmaline remarked with a cocked eyebrow. The stomach contents was blackened also, but that appeared to be the acid only and even that was partial as though the high acidity of the stomach was destroying the black liquid that was so ubiquitous else where. Or the stuff was a protenagenous and was being broken down by stomach enzymes, or a hundred other things. Whatever the reason the half digested food was only partially colored in the black tar like substance. The last meal appeared to be cereal of some kind, perhaps a muesli bar.

“Hello,” Eleanor said as a glint caught her eye. She reached into the mass and withdrew a small metal object.

“A key?” Emmaline asked in surprise as Ellie held it up to the camera. It was an old fashioned brass key with three teeth of different lengths and an ornate loop at the base.

“He must have swallowed it before.... whatever happened to him,” Ellie agreed. That meant he had swallowed the thing, at most, six hours before his death, otherwise it would have moved down into his intestines.

“Vat do you fink killed him?” Emmaline asked, sweating now as the program increased the speed and incline. The Austrian witch spoke good English, but her accent always thickened when she was focusing on something else. The key clattered as Ellie set it down in the examination tray and rinsed it with some alcohol.

“Well I’m going to take a wild guess and say it was suddenly being made of about fifty percent black stuff,” Ellie opined with a straight face.

“As I said, you are very funny.”

Eleanor did smile now, though the expression wasn’t obvious on her face Emmaline recognized it.

“Vhy are you so happy?” she asked as Eleanor stepped away from the open corpse and began to strip of her protective gear, dumping it into one of the warded bins with imposing black biohazard symbols.

“I’m going to need an opinion on this black stuff, and you know how much I enjoy waking Anna up…”

She dreamed of lights. Shimmering, glowing lights that never faded and never dimmed. They shown up from beneath the water, like a lighthouse in reverse, guiding her ever deeper. There were hints, down there, of a city. A city with spires that seemed to ripple as the water flowed through them. A city with streets that turned ever inwards.

A city with some serious electric bills ...

Junia stared at the ceiling. She needed less sleep these days, but what she got was infected by those images. They didn't bother her at all, and that fact bothered her. She should be worried. But there was nothing sinister about the dreams. They just were. The city felt like it had waited for eons, it could wait a few more.

Her bladder, however, was far less patient. She shoved the comforter aside, which earned her a displeased look from a cat, and forged her way to the bathroom. Her little duplex wasn't much, but some thoughtful soul had made sure it had a spacious bathroom with a full soaker tub. That - and its convenient location not far from the Sunday Group headquarters - more than made the rent worth it.

Morning ablutions taken care of, she wandered towards the kitchen, traveling only as fast as the cats around her ankles would allow.

"You two would get fed a lot faster if you stopped trying to trip mommy, you know."

Ellsie, as always, was imperious. She stayed just out of reach, her profile stately, as she loudly proclaimed her hunger. Dewey - dear sweet, stupid Dewey - tried to brush against her legs, tripped over his own paws, and tumbled onto his fuzzy behind. She'd found both as strays, and she was becoming increasingly convinced that Dewey was part ferret.

She fed them both from the same tuna can, then punched the button on the coffee maker. Breakfast would be miso soup again. Well, after she cleared the papers off the kitchen table. It was just a little too convenient sometimes. But the dashi was already bubbling before she even halfway finished sorting, and so it was breakfast in the living room again.

After that, it was time to face the mirror. The lines on her neck had gotten no darker, thank God. She'd spent a week with blurry vision when the nictitating membrane showed up, but that would still be better than explaining gill slits to the hairdresser.

Still, better to wear a light scarf. A dress, a cardigan, and the uniform was complete. She was almost close enough to work that she could walk, but her old Subaru still had boxes and boxes of paperwork that really did need to be accessioned. No reason for anymore delays. Time for work.

---

The building draped itself on the slope. It was made of the same yellow-ish brick as every other small office complex on this half of the city. Beside it was an old grocery store converted into a warehouse, and on the other side was an old warehouse converted into a food co-op. The circle of life.

Naturally, the parking lot was on the steepest part of the slope. There was a railing at the bottom in case of a failed parking brake. Thankfully the Subaru never budged. Once again she decided against unloading the boxes.

The sign out front listed a half-dozen organizations with well-meaning, nonsensical names. All of them were just slightly true. The "Council for Stress-Related Disorders" could certainly refer to the Sunday Group, given how many members developed PTSD. The "District Library Assistance Board" was her baby; grants went from the state to the local libraries through D-LAB. No one needed to know that the whole organization ran on a laptop in her office.

The trick to the office building was to think of it as a mushroom: the visible part was just for show. The real action was underground. Each floor looked like it was terraced onto the slope, but they actually ran back into the slope for more than twice their apparent length. Then they turned down, deep underneath the city. God only knew how deep, really, and She wasn't telling.

It was bigger than it ought to be, and older than it could possibly be, and stranger than anyone could imagine. It was the Sunday Group. And, eh, it was a job.

His alarm emitted an odious beeping, and he knew if he didn't turn it off, it would continue for twenty minutes. Even Manny didn't have the patience and overt laziness to wait that out, and so he opened his eyes slightly, gazing around his cramped apartment without moving a muscle. Years spent hunting things most people didn't believe in gave one a healthy paranoia. Anything sifting through a room wouldn't have been able to tell he was awake. The detective had learned never to groan or even breathe differently once he awoke. It had freaked out more than one woman, he recalled with a snort of amusement.

As soon as he had moved here, he knew it would be a bit less roomy than his last place. Apartment sizes were often larger with numbers, and they got progressively smaller the more reliant on letters they were. Apartment A's were usually shitty basement apartments, private restroom optional. When he was sure that no one was in here with him, he leaped out of the bed.

He scratched his unkempt hair and finally let himself groan, using his free hand to turn the TV on. His big toe touched the power button to his retro Xbox 360, and suddenly it zoomed onto the screen. He clicked 3 buttons, and his playlist came on. His music, loud and full of drums and bass, suddenly popped up, and he headed towards the bathroom, passing by one of his noir posters. His shower was quick, and luckily it didn't seem to be full of iron tasting water this time. Must be his birthday.

He put on his pants, and buttoned up his shirt before he took a look outside. Two white males working. He recognized them from his daily scope outs. Not hard to figure out. One seemed to have a significant other, the lankier one. He had the distinct feeling the lankier one was a cultist of some sort. The sulphur in the dumpster he frequented was a fair clue, as was the 'new age' books of wiccan spells he'd seen through the window. Nothing he couldn't handle. He'd check later, but for now, business called.

He put his effects in his pockets. He checked to see his pistol was full, and placed it into easy reach on his person, grip poking into the small of his back from within his shirt. His switch blade was in his sock. "Time to start trouble." he said to himself, opening the door and sliding out. He needed food, and decided he'd go out and get some early breakfast before heading to work.

He walked into the office with an egg and cheese bagel, and some orange juice in a cup. Paid to be healthy in his line of work, he told himself. He didn't speak to anyone he passed, just waving to whoever noticed him before he entered his office, breathing a sigh of relief once he sat down, retrieving his copy of 'A Thousand Horrors' and turning to page 769 to golems. Word had it a stone statue twenty miles up the road had killed a janitor. He wondered just how possible that was.

It paid to be nosy too.

Unlike the rest of the team who had more permanent housing, Clive had taken to sleeping on a ratty air mattress in the small corner office he'd claimed as his. It was a step up from sleeping in his Jeep in his opinion. The room was rather spartan with no decoration to speak of save a wooden table with a large map of the continental United States tacked to the wall behind it. The map was crisscrossed with strings of yarn and colored pins marking out areas of interest. The table was littered with various newspaper clippings, sticky notes, and a few composition books of various colors containing all his notes and observations in the field. Off in the corner of the room was a large rucksack already packed and ready to go at a moment's notice. A rifle and shotgun leaned against the rucksack and beside them was a pile of ammo boxes neatly stacked to about knee height. A gun rack sat opposite from the bag loaded down with various long guns and a smattering of pistols and revolvers complete with enough boxed ammo to outlast a siege.

As he did most mornings, Clive woke with a start, eyes darting around as if he didn't remember where he was. He clutched a hunting knife in a white knuckle grip as last night's less than pleasant dreams faded away. The moment passed quickly as he kicked the blanket off him and stood with the knife still clutched in his fist. He stretched and groaned with relief when his back popped. A thought crossed his mind that maybe he should consider getting a real mattress. Then again, he still wasn't fully convinced this teamwork business would last and if that was the case he would be leaving without the mattress anyway.

Pushing the negative thoughts away, Clive retrieved his pistol from under the pillow and tucked it into his waistband as he moved to the door. He was already dressed, having slept in his jeans, stained shirt, and jacket. The man even slept with hiking boots on. It was nigh impossible to catch him more than a few minutes away from being ready for a trek into the mountains. One by one he undid the one-sided deadbolt locks he'd taken the liberty of installing and made his way into the office proper to start the coffee machine. As he waited for the blessed jitter juice, Clive pulled a bag from the cupboard and poured a mouthful of granola directly into his face. He chewed with distended cheeks and waited for the team to gather.

---

Summoned to life by a loud ringing that fell like a hammerblow against her skull, Anna woke up with a cold sweat and the sickly sweet doom that seemed to have followed her back from the Pyramid Club. Fighting a wave of fear, she lurched upwards in a panic and gasped for air, desperately grabbing for her phone and then throwing it halfway across her bed before she had even read the caller ID of whoever had brought her back to the land of the living. Burying a sob in her hands, Anna pushed the blankets aside with a low, weary sigh. She ignored the half-awake complaints from the woman next to her and the fumbling hand that reached for her shoulder.

She couldn't remember the woman's name. It was probably Sarah. Maybe Sophia. It didn't matter. It never did.

Rolling out of her bed, Anna grabbed a crumpled t-shirt that lay in a pile of clothing at the foot of the bed and threw it on. It smelled of sweat and vodka. A small cloud of glitter attacked her and flashes of the previous night exploded past her retinas, smashing her visual cortex with bright strobe lights and visions of excess. She held her head between her hands and cursed. Magic infused drugs always kicked hard. And tequila never helped. The young trash alchemist sat down on the floor several steps later with another groan of pain. She fished a pill out of the back pocket of her discarded jeans and swallowed it dry.

Praying for mercy, she collapsed onto the cold floor with a low whimper, waiting for the moment to pass.

"Hello?" Anna heard, refusing to move or open her eyes as she tried to melt into a puddle on the wooden floor.

"Who? What? Hang on, I'll get her."

A hand shook her, gently at first, and then more forcefully.

"It's for you, someone calling about a Sunday Group, whatever that means, she says her name is Eleanor."

Rolling over onto her side and squinting between her fingers Anna eyed the disheveled women sitting next to her on the floor suspiciously. It was a trap. It had to be a trap. She began to feel a growing sense of dread that manifested into absolute despair. Curling into a sad ball on the dusty, glitter strewn floor of her room the young wizard began to plead with the universe at large.

Not work.

Not Eleanor.

Not now.

Please not now.

Anna studied the ceiling for several seconds as she contemplated the excuses she could make. Eleanor Tregellan didn't seem the type to buy a sad story. And the company still believed in her. She hadn't burned enough bridges for them to hate her. They didn't know her, not really. Not yet. The buzz from the pill calmed her. She breathed slowly, enjoying the tingling warmth that crept outward from her core. She was an artist. A real artist with drugs. It was a pity so few people knew. The office. Anna closed her eyes and let herself fade from the moment. When she opened her eyes again words floated past her.

"Fuck," Anna muttered, feeling suddenly dizzy as she remembered the linear flow of time. She grabbed the phone unsteadily and sent her midnight companion away and back to the bed with a chastising wave of her hand.

"What's up, boss?" Anna said, leaning her head gloomily against the floor as she pressed the phone against her ear, managing to sound only halfway under the influence of too many fresh arcane ingredients.

"Anna," Eleanor replied her voice clipped with a deliberate lack of emotion.

"You shouldn't have someone else answering your phone it's not... never mind. We have a case and I need you here immediately."

"Immediately?" Anna said, swallowing the sob that threatened to escape her throat.

"Are you sure there isn't someone else you can call? Someone closer? I'm...incredibly busy at the moment," Anna continued uncertainly, casting an eye towards her bed and the other women.

"If I need something shot immediately, I call Clive, if I need an alchemist immediately I call you. So kindly shake the glitter out of your eyes, put your panties on and get your ass in here," Eleanor responded in a tone so calm that it would have shamed a Catholic Saint. One of the old kind that might get to smiting any minute now.

Anna felt an electric surge of fear. Calm was not good. Calm Eleanor was extremely not good. The haze of a long night and morning was not enough for her to forget. Not really. Not completely. She needed Eleanor. She needed the Sunday Group.

Haphazardly covering her phone with her hands, Anna turned to woman who's name she couldn't remember, "Ummm...do you think you could get me an Uber? I'll pay you back next time, promise. I'll buy you a drink. A fancy drink. It's a work thing. Something important. I don't think I can get out of it. Not this time."

"Mmm, maybe," came the reply. "But only if you come back to bed, at least for a bit."

Anna sighed and the sweetness had faded from her voice as she addressed Eleanor with an obvious edge of exhausted defeat, "Fine, boss, fine, I'll be there as soon as I can. I just need...I just need to get some things first."

"Wonderful," Eleanor replied with a nonchalance that almost burned, "I'll see you in twenty minutes."

---

Minutes passed as Anna lay in the bed in a panic.

Her head remained buried beneath her pillow and she tried her best not to cry. She kept her eyes closed shut, as if the darkness could protect her from having to get out of her bed. Colors swirled across her vision. Strange colors that hurt her head as she tried to see past them. She felt herself falling as she tried to scream. There was no sound as the she felt the darkness, true darkness, overtake her.

A poised figure seemed to loom above and behind her. Eleanor. The Boss. Springsteen? No. Tregellan. Less Americana and soulful crowning. More witchy and half muttered curses. Anna remembered her. Anna knew her. Anna knew her all too well. All those freckles, all that competence, and all those gold framed glasses. Eleanor intimidated her. Eleanor scared her. But she needed her. She needed Eleanor. She needed the Sunday Group.

Another form danced in front of her. She saw a smooth face and rumpled clothes. A toothpick held in place between smirking lips. An investigator. One of many. Another enigmatic private dick she'd met at the Sunday Group. Manny Rockefeller. She wasn't quite sure what he did, but he seemed like the capable sort. He'd heard Eleanor say he was a problem solver. Whatever that meant, whatever that really meant.

The vision faded.

A serious face and serious eyes appeared instead. Grim eyes stared back at her. A man with guns, so many guns. Clive Davidson. The name meant little to her, but she heard faint music and an Ennio Morricone banger banger began to play. She hoped he was like John Wayne. John Wayne in True Grit. A mean man, perhaps a stupid man. A gunslinger. Just the sort of monster the Sunday Group needed to hunt the real monsters.

Gun smoke shrouded the figure as she vanished into the darkness.

A cheerful smile that was somehow as distressing as it was kind emerged from the smoke. The librarian. Junia Harris. A strange woman, but a clever woman, and the owner of an oddly shaped face. Anna saw books, endless stacks of books, as she thought of the tall woman. She felt as if the image of the books that appeared unbidden in her mind would overwhelm her, and she could have sworn she was staring at a an endless maze that seemed to stretch into long eternity. There was a low song, full of words she couldn't understand, and the wet smell of the ocean. Somehow it made her afraid and Anna shuddered.

"Get a hold of yourself," Anna admonished and pleaded with a desperate laugh. It was the drugs. It was the pixie dust. It was always the drugs. It was always the pixie dust. The visions weren't real. She wasn't real. Nothing was real. Not anymore.

---

The bed rocked as Anna tore the pillow away from her head and forced her eyes open.

She resisted the urge to scream and gulped down her anxiety. She couldn't let them down. Not yet. Not now. Not again. She needed rent money. She needed caffeine. And she needed a breakfast burrito. She had to get up. She had a job to do. With her mind made up, she rose to her feet and walked unsteadily out of her bedroom. She didn't bother putting on any more clothes. She wasn't a prude. She didn't believe in pants. Not within the safety of her own flat. Well, Milo's flat, but she paid him. So it was hers. As long as she had cash.

Trying her best to walk like a human and not a zombie, Anna stumbled through the hallway, past the crumbling kitchen, and walked into the bathroom with a muted grunt in the direction of the bowler wearing young man sitting on the living room floor as he delicately fussed over a kettle of tea and ornate tea set. He waved back at her, but his eyes didn't move away from the tea.

Slamming the door behind her, Anna undressed and stepped into the shower. The cold kiss of water jolted her completely awake and she leaned her head against the wall as the water rose to an almost unbearable temperature. The water fell over her and she felt tears on her cheeks. She needed a way out. She needed more time. She needed Cara. Drugs couldn't banish the nightmares. Magic couldn't quiet her desperate need. Scalding water and burning soap couldn't make her clean. She could still see the fangs. She could still smell the sickly sweet death that haunted her.

Her life had been good. Her life had been simple. She had lived in nondescript warehouses subsiding on a well-tested diet of coffee in Styrofoam cups, instant noodles, loud thumping music, and party drugs. But she'd fucked up. She'd fucked up and now she was trapped. The Sunday Group was her way out. It was her only chance. If she could make a buck. If she could make a lot of bucks. She could get out. She could buy her way out.

A loud thump on the door interrupted her frantic thoughts. Milo didn't like it when she wasted water. He said anything more than fifteen minutes was a waste of money. Uninterested in another argument, Anna turned off the water with a string of curses and wrapped herself in a nearby towel. She flashed Milo both of her middle fingers as she walked past him. His low chuckle followed her back to her room. Her friend from the previous night hadn't moved much.

Several more minutes passed before the alchemist was ready. She had dressed reluctantly, perceiving real work to be suffering. Her black jeans were tastefully torn at one knee and her t-shirt was a loud electric blue. Feeling a need for some level of professionalism, Anna put on a pair of scuffed green canvas sneakers that seemed more than cool enough for a business meeting. She hoped the rest of the Sunday Group would be pleased that she'd even taken the time to do her makeup. She grabbed her jacket from the chair where she had left it on her way out of the bedroom.

Still reaching for some semblance of calm, Anna crossed the apartment and stopped at a thick metal door that seemed oddly out of place in a residential apartment. The door latch looked to be fashioned from the rear axle of an old Ford and had been haphazardly welded across the metal lined door frame. The alchemist pulled a key from her pocket and unlocked the bike lock strung through the latch.

Anna walked into the room deliberately, stopping to disarm the trigger mechanism of the alchemical bomb she had set up. She'd picked up the design reading a redacted paper from some three letter agency about modern IEDs. She didn't bother to close the door behind her. Milo knew to respect her privacy. She felt a small rush of slowly growing excitement. Eleanor needed her. The Sunday Group needed her. She knew something. She could do something. She was useful. She wasn't a failure. She wasn't a loser. She wasn't doomed, at least not yet.

Idly dreaming, Anna grabbed her work bag. It was a tattered leather bag that lived in the corner of the room. She kept it stocked with basic alchemical ingredients and her own personal takes on classical potions. Peering inside she noted that she had a potion to heighten the senses, a potion to facilitate a hasty escape, a potion to increase strength, and a potion to heal minor wounds. The key she mused pridefully to herself, flicking a vial lightly with her fingertips, was adding cherry flavor. Powerful magic was so much more tolerable when it was accompanied by a sweet flavor.

Without a second thought the young alchemist reached for a jar of small pills that she shoved into an empty bottle of Ibuprofen. Shaking the pill bottle, she stashed it in the inner pocket of her jacket. The color coded pills were an elicit mixture of arcane drugs of her own design, varying in potency and effect, from a mild buzz to a psychedelic magic fueled trip into another plane of existence. They would help her ease the boredom she expected. They'd numb the familiar pains. They'd help her escape herself. They'd keep her functional, at least for a while. Maybe they'd even help her forget.

Shutting the heavy door to the laboratory behind her, Anna reset the alchemical trap. It was powerful enough to level the room if not the entire apartment. She wrapped a heavy bike lock through the latch and tugged forcefully on it before nodding contently to herself. She wasn't taking any chances. She trusted Milo, but she wasn't an idiot. He was a friend, a good friend even, but friendships wasn't an insurance policy when dealing with groups of cranky wizards drunk on their own moral superiority and delusions of grandeur.

"I'm heading out, Milo", Anna said, putting on her jacket. Wearing her armor, she finally felt ready, ready to face the world and the monsters that lurked in the shadows. At least that's what she wanted to believe. If only she hadn't known better.

"A party, this early?" Milo asked as she reached for the door knob.

"No, I wish," Anna said. "Work. Got a phone call from the office."

"Office? This that Sunday Group thing you were talking about? No more peddling drugs, ey? You've finally went and gone straight on me, have you?"

"Yes, I'm upstanding member of society now, Milo. An honest woman, as it were," Anna said sarcastically. She crossed her arms and nodded in the direction of her laboratory, "Keep on eye on things will you?"

"Sure, sure, you pay me for the privilege of two rooms and I will guard that privilege with my life."

"Wonderful, just don't let anyone into my laboratory."

"Of course, that's what you pay me extra for," Milo answered without even a hint of offense in his voice.

"And if the cops show up just make sure to burn my kit before they get through the front door."

"What do I do if a council of wizards show up?" Milo asked with a raised brow and a smirk that betrayed his true nature.

Anna paused in thought for a moment and then offered a shrug, "If a council of wizards show up, make sure to burn my stuff even faster. I don't need them offering me any more advice."

"Right, napalm it is. Let's see those older geezers deal with that," Milo said with a laugh.

Anna rolled her eyes at the young trickster, fighting an urge to call him a child. She gestured with a thumb towards her bedroom, recalling a recent complication, "Oh, there's a woman in my room, Sarah, can you make sure she leaves in a couple of hours."

Milo turned and looked at her with familiar eyes. Sad eyes, full of disappointment. Anna swore under her breath. She knew she had fucked up. She had fucked up again and the trash alchemist felt a wave of self-disgust surging through her. The hoodlum tutted softly, "Samantha, she said her name was Samantha. You'd do well to listen, just once, Anna. You can't keep treating people like this."

"Yeah, ok. Samantha, that's what I said. Get off my back, Milo. Just get her out of my room and don't let her back in."

"Yeah, yeah, but don't expect me to apologize for you."

"What's there to apologize for?" she hissed at Milo, trying her best to channel her shame into anger. Anger was good. Anger was easy. She could work with anger. She could handle it.

She heard Milo rising from his merch on the couch before open the door, "Wait, hold up Anna."

Even with the bowler hat on his head, he was a good head shorter than Anna and a fair bit younger. Anna always hated how much older he seemed. He lorded his position as household authority over her. He cared. He cared and sometimes she hated him for caring. Oblivious, he beamed a smiled at her and held out a paper shopping bag. She made no move to take the bag and Milo impatiently flashed a gun from within the paper.

"On the house. Something to keep you safe. 9mm Para-fucking-bellum. Czech Steel. Shoots ace. Not a lot of kick. Will last you for a good hundred years. Clips loaded and you've got 16 rounds. Just don't forget to turn the safety off before you start blasting, yeah?"

"I don't need a gun, Milo," Anna said, feeling her heart lurch in her chest. She wasn't a fighter. She wasn't even a sometimes fighter. She was a runner. She was a coward.

"Yeah, well wizards always say shit like that and then they take a round to the dome or find themselves eaten by some monster. You're an investigator now, Anna, you gotta bring some artillery with you when you hit the streets."

"Fuck," Anna said, regretting her life choices for only the fourth time in an hour. "If I get arrested I'm telling them you gave me this."

"Just use some magic, make it look like a rock or something. Use a glamor, can't be that hard. I've seen other pointy hatted fellows do it. Not like anyone is gonna look to carefully at your bag, are they? You've got enough going on to keep them staring," Milo replied with a wink.

"Fuck," was all she weakly managed as she took the gun and stuffed it into her bag.

She wasn't ready to kill.

She wasn't a killer, even if she could check off a long list of sins.

---

Ten minutes later, Anna strode up to the offices of the Sunday Group with her tired eyes hidden beneath a pair of sunglasses.

She had stolen them from a shop rack after her Uber at dropped her off a couple of block from the office. Free was almost always better than $179.95. The alchemist wielded a questionable breakfast burrito she had purchased from an even more dubious food cart in her right hand. She had an office. They had said so on her first day. Well, it was less of an office and more of a chemistry laboratory. She couldn't remember where it was. She didn't feel like asking. It was somewhere in the basement and the idea of stairs didn't appeal to her. The short car ride and walk to the office was enough adventure for one day as far as she was concerned. She had survived and she wasn't taking any more chances.

Touching the door to the office, Anna felt a hint of magic, old magic. A Magical door was a nice touch she thought. She was impressed. She wondered if there were any old wizards around. Old wizards with valuable artifacts that she could borrow. Old wizards with ancient tomes full of forbidden knowledge that she could read.

The office felt new. The office felt as if it had changed. Anna wondered if she had forgotten. Memories felt as if they had changed. Anxiety coursed through her blood and she reflexively palmed the vial of blood she kept in the pocket of her jacket. She was falling apart. She was losing it. She wanted to forget. She had to forget. She wanted to drink the blood. She needed it. She needed it, she needed it now, but she knew that she'd really need it later.

Concentrating on each step she took, Anna found herself standing in front of a large counter worthy of any Fortune 500 wannabe corporation and peering at the flustered looking secretary that sat behind it. Anna moved her mouth to speak, but found the motion troublesome and instead leaned dramatically against the counter.

"Yes, Miss Kerensky?" the secretary finally said. She sounded annoyed and Anna could see the way she looked at her. She felt judged. She felt measured. And she felt that she had been found wanting. It was the story of her life, Anna thought, feeling increasingly unsteady.

"I need to see the boss. I need to see Eleanor. Where is she? Take me to her," Anna began effortfully, pausing to offer a smile as she tried her best to keep from falling, "Please?"

"I'll take care of it, Kathy."

Around the corner comes Junia, with bits of her scraping the wall as she makes the turn. She gives the receptionist a smile that is probably intended to be reassuring and takes Anna by the arm. Anna finds herself pulled along in Junia's wake until a sudden turn brings them to a small breakroom.

"Here, take a second to pull yourself together. You can tell Ellie that I needed to consult with you about the latest alchemical journal."

She drops a magazine on the frisbee-sized breakroom table. Alkahest Monthly. The sober cover is ruined by a blurb that reads, "Which of the four types of philosopher stone are you? Take our quiz and find out!"

Junia sniffs. "It says I'm the vegetative stone. Really, I get out more than that. But sit, sit, take a breather. You ... uh ... you might want to leave that burrito in the fridge, though. Ellie and Emma have been working in the morgue all morning. That's not a place for food. Or a full stomach, really."

Junia looks Anna up and down, taking in the sunglasses, torn jeans and canvas shoes. "You still look a bit rough, Anna. You want me to make excuses for you? Trust me, I can prattle on until our dear leader is bored to tears and she's forgotten you were ever invited."

"I'm fine, very fine, great even," Anna insisted halfheartedly, carelessly abandoning her breakfast burrito onto the nearby counter.

She waved a hand wearily, but gratefully, shaking her head slowly, "I hate the morgue, but I hate angry Eleanor even more. Let's just get this over with..."

Stumbling to her feet Anna managed to catch herself against the other woman, "Say, you wouldn't happen to have any forbidden, possibly dangerous, books about liches hidden away in your library? I need to do some research."

Junia's eyes go blank as she goes into 'answering reference question' mode. "Liches? We've got a bit. Most of it's medieval and I wouldn't trust it. Monks came up with all sorts of ideas while drinking homemade wine at 3am ."

"We've do have a couple of books on recognizing and destroying phylacteries and horcruxes. They're tricky to work with, though. The Group found them during a cult raid, and they're bound with skin. I can't tell what kind of skin - something with micro-scales - and that's a preservation nightmare. I have to keep them chilled, so they're in the cold room with the film. "

" ... and, well, I know most people hate dealing with microfiche, but we've got some good shots of the Greek Magical Papyri. There's a whole section on spells to detect the different kinds of intelligent undead. Which seems kinda silly, since most of the greek undead were half-rotted and had to eat human livers or something. Seems like a tip-off. The original papyri were destroyed and the Church has them banned on the ultra-secret, slit-throat-after-reading list, but someone took some good photos."

"Tell me more about this Greek paper, it sounds promising" Anna said, pulling Junia lightly towards the door. "No doubt it will be less disgusting than whatever Eleanor wants me to take a look at."

Junia allowed herself to be pulled along. "Well, Greek Magical Papyri is a collective scholarly name for ... uh ... Hellenistic ... " Junia reevaluated her audience, "... a bunch of magic stuff written on old reeds. Anyway, there are a number of spells for locating angry spirits that are refusing to go down to Hades."

Junia noded towards a security guard as they passed through a hallway checkpoint. A left turn, a right, and they were headed down towards the morgue.

"Problem is, I think it's all goetic magic, you know? You're basically summoning a spirit and demanding that it point out any cranky dead people. I don't know if Eleanor would allow it, 'cause our track record for summoning stuff around here is kinda crap."

"It's my professional opinion that we can always ask Eleanor after we have summoned said spirit to lead us to cranky dead people with centuries of forbidden arcane knowledge," Anna quipped. The smile that teased at the edges of her mouth despite her tattered state, made it obvious that she relished the chance to perform future mischief.

Junia smiled uncomfortably. She was happy to see Anna starting to come to life, but not thrilled with the notion of pissing off the bosswoman. "I just don't want to see another repeat of last time, where we summoned a spirit that we couldn't get rid of. It got tiresome having blood drip down the walls every time we had a staff meeting."

She rolls her eyes, "Although, I guess we could just tell Clive that it's a ghost. I'm sure he's itching to use that proton pack again."

Junia's mouth snapped closed as they suddenly arrived at the door to the morgue. Two large metal doors led into the morgue, looking something like the doors to industrial refrigerators. There were security bars, locks and latches all around, but - Junia shuddered - most of them seemed positioned to keep something from getting out rather than from getting in.

Junia reached for the heavy handle ...

Ipad Emmaline had concluded her work out, a significant negative as far as Eleanor was concerned now that the sports bra clad Austrian had vanished off screen to shower and dress for her job as an adjunct professor of mathematics at the University of Chicago. There was a temptation to ask Emmaline to come in, which she would do, but Eleanor was reluctant to disrupt her lovers professional endeavors just because it would make her feel better. She was just about to call Anna and find out where she was when the morgue door swung open, the heavy panel moving silently on its well oiled hinges.

"Ah Anna and Junia, well I suppose it is just as well you are both here," she declared, refraining from chiding Anna for how long it had taken her to arrive. The Sunday Group had a number of disiplinary problems that would be unfamiliar to most MBAs. For a start, the type of people the group recruited tended to be a little... touched, one way or another. Few vanilla mortals and fewer still of those who were touched with magical abillity of one sort or another were what a psychiatrist would classify as completely stable. There was also the issue of enforcing any kind of discipline, it was difficult to imagine a punishement that would be more dangerous or unpleasant than simply turning up to work.

Eleanor uncrossed her arms, oblivious to the fact that the entire front of her protective apron was smeared with the same sticky black substance that permeated the body. She extended a blackened glove to point at the corpse on the table.

"Meet John Doe, male in his thirties on the basis of dental wear, the body was found dead in the loading dock of Hyde Park Interiors on Southblackstone this morning," she continued in a professorial tone. Eleanor extended a finger to a large computer monitor that was linked to a strange looking instrument that was pointed at the corpse. The screen showed a video image of the body overlaid with bright colors ranging from blue to white.

"Ambient readings is in the ten to twelve Thaum range, so spicy, but without intraosseous nodes, so not a practitioner himself. In other words he stinks of magic for someone without any training." Thaum's or Thaumaturgical Kelvins were a measure of arcane power that could be detected by sufficiently crafty electronics. A practitioner or magic typically read between two and three thaums depending on mood and level of skill. It was dangerous to conduct a seanse with a corpse that had anything over two thaums as the spirit would be able to utilize that background magic to do whatever it chose, that tended not to be anything that the would be necromancer wanted.

"Cause of death is tentatively..." Eleanor paused and made a sweeping gesture that encompassed the black fluid leaking from the body and covering her apron.

"Drowning in black shit."

---

Manny inevitably poked his head out of his private office, realizing he hadn’t grabbed any of the free shit the Sunday Group offered, like coffee and bagels once in a blue moon. Oh, and he hadn’t seen Eleanor yet. In fact, it was unerringly quiet at the moment. Blinking, both hands on the door frame as he leaned out into the hallway like a primate, he saw Clive in the next room opposite his side of the corridor.
“Yo Clive, where is everyone?”

Clive looked up and shrugged. As always, a heavy drawl lay thick over his every word. You could take the man out of Texas but no force on Earth or in Heaven above could take the Texas out of that man.
"I'm sure Eleanor is up to somethin' God-awful down in the dungeon, Anna's MIA, and Junia's on her way more than likely." He nodded toward the coffee machine that started to crackle and bubble with heat. "Coffee?"

“Knowing her, it’s something grim,” He sighed, still stuck with the early morning blues. Manny was as athletic as they came in a life or death situation, but like a panther, he would always rather lounge. The lanky detective strode over and grabbed a cup, waiting for Clive to pour some out for him. “Thanks. And they say this shit’s bad for you…” Manny shrugged as his thoughts continued. “Guess they also say ghosts aren’t real. I fucking wish.”

He felt the ache of a bruise on his shoulder from last month. That one had been particularly ornery when the Sunday Group showed up, tossing Manny across the room.

"Ghosts may be real, but so is coffee. Pretty even trade."
Clive waited for the last few drips of coffee to peter out before obliging Manny with a cup and pouring one for himself. There was a great deal of mystical mischief he was willing to put up with if it meant free hot coffee.
"So," Clive began in something resembling an attempt at small talk, "how's things?"
“Things are good.” Manny said, taking a cup of his own, sipping it gingerly. He let the statement simmer for a bit, until the awkward silence turned into a joke in and of itself. Manny gave a laugh. He had always liked Clive. They were different in more ways than one, but he was someone Manny knew had a lot of similar experiences in his life. “Seriously though, it’s the same ol’ same ol’. I don’t think anyone sticks around here because they’re happy with themselves, but I guess I can be proven wrong. All I know is, we haven’t had anything big in awhile so we’re due for it…”
A thought popped into Manny’s head. “I always wanted to ask. Is this job how you envisioned it would be?”
"Not in the slightest," Clive replied matter of factly and took a long sip of coffee. "I'd been roughing it out of my car solo-style for years so I assumed that's how folks in this business did it. Got the call and figured it would be that but more people."

Clive held a particular respect for anyone like Manny who was both able and willing to roll up their sleeves and get their hands dirty to finish a job. It was one of the reasons he somewhat enjoyed this line of work. He would occasionally cross paths with others like himself and it was always a welcome surprise when it happened.
“I’ve lived that life too, for a bit.” Manny said, holding up his coffee cup in a faux toast, and then he downed a good bit of the brew. The drink was just hot enough to give a pleasant sensation going down his throat. He decided to finish it then and there, and he crumpled the cup. “What’s say we go find the rest and see what they’re cooking up, eh?”
Clive downed the rest of his coffee in one go. It was black as sin, warm like a swamp in August, bitter like a scorned lover, and it was perfect in every way. He adjusted the pistol grip poking out of his waistband and sighed as he gestured in the direction of the basement stairs.
"I'd rather not, but I don't get paid to stand around twiddling my thumbs."

Anna's face turned pale white as she looked at the seeping body splayed out on the table.

"What the fuck," she managed, covering her mouth and staggering backwards. Her eyes swept desperately over the room and she stumbled over to a nearby bucket, vomiting most of a breakfast burrito's worth of half-digested remains into the nondescript metal bucket.

"That," Eleanor said, biting of the ends of the words with acidic precision, "was an organ bucket." The formaldehyde solution which held John Doe's kidneys, every bit as chocked with black goo as the rest of him, sizzled a popped as it came into contact with whatever eldritch abomination had recently resided in Anna's stomach.

Gracefully wiping her mouth with the sleeve of her jacket, Anna shrugged as she straightened back up, "Well, I don't think he was planning on using his organs again any time soon."

"Is it supposed to do that?" She asked pointing at the sizzling contents of the bucket as she tried to regain some clarity and focus.

"Well," Eleanor began closing her eyes in an act of herculean restraint, "I had our resident alchemist the formaldehyde with a magic suppressant solution." Eleanor peeled of first one glove and then the other with a wet snap before tossing them into a biohazard bin.

"Which means either there are traces of magical material in your stomach acid or you just ate a bunch of pop rocks. I honestly don't have enough data to know which is more likely." Off to the side, Junia looked faintly green. Of course, she usually looked faintly green, so this wasn't useful information. She backed away from the hissing bucket.

"Um, Anna, where did you get that burrito from?" Junia asked. "I think selling magical chorizo should at least earn them a negative Yelp review."

"The only thing magical about that chorizo was how good it tasted," Anna replied, still mourning the breakfast burrito.

"I...may have ingested some alchemical compounds as part of a new research project last night though," Anna admitted. Eleanor began to fold her arms across her chest only to realize that she still wore her gore spattered apron. Aborting the motion she instead put her hands on her hips. There was a slight tingle in the back of her sinuses that indicated that she wasn't managing to control her magic quite as well as she thought she was. One of the fluorescent lights overhead flickered in sympathy.

"I'm sure you gained many 'new insights' Anna," Eleanor replied caustically. The lights flared up for a moment and one of them popped with an electric sizzle and then went dark.

"Now if you wouldn't mind sharing your no doubt vast insight into alchemical substances with us..." she made a gesture towards the black goo, "I'm sure we shall all be better pleased." Junia jumped when one of the lightbulbs popped. Irritated Eleanor and electronics don't mix, and there was lots of sensitive electronics in the rooms. Best to change the subject.

"So I'm not clear... was the guy submerged in this black goop, or is he becoming the black goop?" Junia asked with a sidways glance at the corpse. Eleanor's gaze shifted away from Anna to the matronly scholar, her professional interest slowly displacing her irritation with Anna's continuing foibles.

"Well, interestingly it seem that neither is the case. Judging from a cross section of his distal phalanges it seems he has been ... interpenetrated by the... whatever it is. He did drown, because a layer of it destroyed the areola of the lungs, but he would have gone down to generalized organ failure within an hour at most." Eleanor made a vague gesture towards photographs on the wall.

"It seems pretty inert, whatever it its, its not a toxin or a pathogen that I can determine."

"Well, that's good. Because you're soaking in it," the librarian pointed out judiciously before turning to study the photographs.

"Interpenetration? That sounds complicated. That sounds like magic gone wrong. Like maybe he was trying to conjure this stuff, but the spell went haywire. But no, because you said this guy is not a magic-user."

"Is this another case of someone 'dabbling in things men weren't meant to know'? So poor normie picked up the wrong book and read the latin out loud?"

Eleanor considered it. One of the positive effects of the near pathological secrecy which practitioners of the arcane attached to their craft was that it was a rare thing that a regular man or woman off the street could pick up a codex or a scroll and do themselves any harm. There were exceptions of course. Some practitioners, especially those who fused faith with magic, could be positively evangelical in their texts. Fortunately the aforementioned paranoids tended to shut such movements down with extreme prejudice.

"Its possible, hard to say without any background and without..." she shot a pointed look towards Anna, "any idea what this stuff is."

Bowing dramatically for Eleanor and then Junia, Anna picked up a random stick looking instrument from the nearby medical stand, and approached the unfortunately inky corpse.

Prodding the corpse and then the black goo carefully, the alchemist took a deep breath, seemingly struggling against the urge of vomit again.

"The disgusting things you make me do," Anna muttered as she leaned in closer, her nostrils flaring slightly as she wafted air above the black goo towards her.

"Esteemed colleagues," the young alchemist began, spooning a bit of the black goo into a vial she seemed to palm from her sleeve.

"What you see before you is ink, black ink to be precise," Anna began, before laughing, as if there was some funny joke that the others had missed, "Someone is playing a joke on you boss, it's old, very old, 1700s maybe, hard to tell exactly, but it's quite the vintage."

"It may be plant based or at the very least it smells faintly of tree sap," Anna concluded, popping a cork stopper into the vial she held. "Beyond that, I would need some more time to investigate the properties of this ink."

"Ink?!" both Julia and Eleanor interjcted in tones so similar they might have come from twin sisters.

"I've heard of writers who say they bleed ink, but this is a bit too much," Julia observed, peering closely at the vial.

Eleanor shared Julia puzzlement. There was a flicker of relief on her face when Anna mentioned the likely plant origin of the stuff. Squid and other creatures of the deep could produce great quantities of ink also and Eleanor was VERY pleased to be able to rule that out.

"Old fashioned ink is made from gum of arabica, kind of a tree sap," Julia piped in helpfully.

"Wait ... could that really be what happened? Could someone have actually turned his blood into ink? That's like ..."
Junia paused and frowned. "That would be difficult in Classical magic," she said, referring to the sort of Late Platonic magic she was familiar with. "I can't say impossible - I have no idea where to start - but I think it could be done. Changing animal blood into vegtable ink sounds like something more ... nature magic-y, maybe."

Eleanor tapped her finger to her lip contemplatively. Her mood seemed to be improving as she considered the arcane puzzle.

"It isn't just blood, the ink is in the intraosseous spaces, too, and the lymphphatic system. I haven't done an analysis yet but given that he presumably traveled from somewhere to the site of his death I guess it wasn't able to infilitrate the cytosol, at least not completely." Her gaze turned to Anna and cooled a degree.

"It might be possible to use a combination of alchemy and thaumaturgy to do it, but it would be an extremely difficult working, which begs the question why? There are much easier ways to kill someone, even if you do want to make a point."

"The manner in which a victim is killed can be reveal much about the killer," Anna said channeling something she suspected she had heard on a Crime podcast that she had only half listened too while mixing some concoction.

"Perhaps our killer simply wanted to send a particular ink stained message?" she mused with a shrug. "That or some murderous practitioner of esoteric magic wanted to flex with their mad alchemical skills. Which knowing wannabe witches and wizards is always a possibility."

The first thing he noticed once he opened the doors to the morgue was the wet slap of the stench that singed his nostril hairs and watered his eyes. It sent images of a melting witch into his mind, but considering the lack of screaming, he doubted it. Manny realized it was going to be one of those strange days, so he simply held himself up and strutted over to the ladies that crowded around the disemboweled and inked corpse. He wasn't privvy to most of their conversation, but he caught the tail end.

"You're assuming they're human." He said in way of announcement, sliding in between his coworkers to get a good look at the body. He was fortunate he brought his jacket. The morgue was cold, like hell was. He had never been, but he knew a few that had spent some time there. His jacket collar popped, brushing his cheek and tickling his nose when he turned from the corpse to Eleanor. "Demons cast incantations too, and they don't play by our rules. Not usually anyway. I'm assuming you don't know who this is, else we wouldn't all be here."

Kneeling down, he gingerly slid the middle finger of his left hand on some of the pooled ink, raising up to his eyes and examining it with a rub of his thumb. He wasn't any match for a forensics test, but he preferred making his own impressions. His dull brown eyes flashed as he thought aloud.

"The victim's body isn't green. That's something at least." He mused, picking himself up and going over to wash his hands in the sink beside the disinfected equipment. Manny had cast on some protective incantations, but he would be damned if he got some weird germs from inside an exploded corpse.

"Ink poisoning in the veins usually turns the skin green. Which means this happened very fast. Not to mention it's a broad spell, encased in a strange execution. Ink's been associated with blood and water since the Ilkhanate sacked Baghdad eight hundred years ago." He remarked, thinking of the stories from the chroniclers. Prime time for demons or cultists, or any real sorcerer with a knowledge of lore, and he knew he shouldn't make any real assumptions on the suspect. He shrugged. "Probably even before then. And the human body is mostly made up of both. Just switch around a few syllables and make the proper sacrifice and you can make this happen. My problem was with how quick it was inside the body, and who the fuck this guy is."

The door opened again, and Manny hadn't even bothered to look over. "Oh yeah, Clive showed up with me."

Clive heard the tail end of Manny's analysis as he descended the steps after him and gave a nod of greeting to the assembled party. The former had never been one for history the way his coworker was. His methods were much more direct and streamlined: track, identify, destroy. Simple, just the way he liked it (at least as much as dealing with the supernatural could be, anyway). Still, he respected anyone who knew their trade so well.

He mentally prepared himself for whatever ungodly thing the boss lady had in store for them as he cleared the last few steps. The smell of rotted flesh hit him and simply rolled off as if it weren't even there. The seasoned hunter had smelled so much decay in his time it simply didn't faze him anymore. Once you've smelled a hundred corpses you've smelled them all, but the sights were always new and exciting in their own uniquely horrible ways. His face screwed up in disgust at the mess on the table as shook his head.
"What in the world happened to… him? Her? That?"
He shook his head again and made the sign of the cross and muttered a prayer before he approached to get a better look. His hands went to his pockets as he examined the human soup and sighed.
"This right here is why I don't fool with magic. Like Granny always said, no good can come of it."

---

"You don't fool with magic because you are very boring, Clive," Anna said with a smirk, before another wave of nausea threatened the stability of her stomach, and left her side eyeing the desecrated bucket of organs.

"Don't you know that Jesus himself was a wizard?" She added when she finally managed to stave off the urge to vomit. Teasing the Gunslinger had rapidly become a cherished hobby for the trash alchemist. Clive was the serious sort. He was serious about guns. He was serious about killing monsters. And he was serious about his beliefs, less frequently uttered as they were. Anna, frequently lost in her own arcane fueled adventures, felt his seriousness had to be challenged, lest Eleanor and Clive somehow turn the Sunday Group into the Very Serious Sunday Group.

"Actually, Jesus only started out as a wizard," replied the woman named after someone 'outstanding among the apostles'. "After his resurrection, he was technically a lich." *heartbeat* "Sorry, one of mom's favorite jokes."

"Anyway, we're not looking at a case of water into wine, we're looking at a case of ink-injected-into-body, like an ink-jet refill gone horribly wrong. Morton Smith isn't going to help us here."

Junia turned back to Anna. "I think you're right; the manner has to be significant. Using ink to kill someone has to be symbolic of something. Is there anyway to figure out who this guy was? If he was an author or a journalist, that might be clue."

Clive turned to Anna with the great grandpappy of all disapproving glares. Every day it seemed the alchemist said some new and creative blasphemy and he couldn't help being mildly impressed. This feeling was, of course, far surpassed by his irritation and concern for her eternal soul. Maybe someday, some day in the far, far future, Lord willing and the creek don't rise, he would get through to her.
"I pray for you every day." With a glance at Junia and narrowed eyes he added, "And now you too."

Returning his attention to the corpse, he scratched his chin for a moment in thought. Considering the elaborate nature of the death it told him a few things about what it could be but a lot more about what it wasn't.
"Whatever happened here was planned and took some sorta intelligence to pull off. This wasn't a feeding, or at least not any kind I've seen. The whole ink business makes me think it was something that can think, something that schemes, so we'd best be real careful going forward."
Clive didn't like things that could scheme. Schemers are unpredictable, sometimes messy, and don't always follow patterns. He didn't like when the prey was as smart or smarter than him. That made things less of a hunt and more of a fair fight with extra steps and he never fought fair if he could help it.

Most HR departments frowned on the discussion of religion. By necessity the Sunday Group maintained a fairly hands off policy in such matters. It was always a little difficult to police such thing when any number of nameless cults might be involved. Eleanor had seen any number of deities invoked over the years, from the ineffectual "please god help me" variety to the sacrifice the virgin to the eldritch abomination with profane chanting. Often enough the first was a direct response to the second.

"The particulars of Magus Yesha aside..." Eleanor began and then took a deep breath.

"I believe Clive is right," she paused for a moment, relieved that reality did not choose that moment to collapse in on itself.

"I think we might have learned all we can here, for now anyway," she continued, pulling her grisly morticians robe off over her shoulders and tossing it into the sanitary bin with a wet plop.

"Lets take a look around the site the body was found."

_______

Eleanor nibbled on her donut. The black raspberry filling squelched between her teeth, reminding her unpleasantly of the ink that had suffused the body she had so recently disected. Likely this was Clive's idea of humor and she determinedly chewed on rather than give him the satisfaction. They had pulled up in front of a four story brick building that had been converted from a stately home to an interior design studio. Pleasant trees spread out over a road that was remarkably quiet for being only a couple of blocks from the lake shore in one direction and the University of Chicago in the other. An extended gravel parking area and a sign which declared the building to be 'Hyde Park Interiors' was all that set it off from its more clearly residential neighbors. There was no police tape or homicide investigators on the site. The only thing that marked it out as the place a body had been found was a trail of ink and a discolored patch of gravel. Chicago PD either hadn't gotten involved, or had been somehow pulled of the case by the Sunday Groups mysterious connections. Eleanor wondered if somewhere a clerk was filling this as a piece of performance art or some other innocuous non-incident. Unconsciously Eleanor cast a look to the west, wondering if Emmaline were lecturing on the transformative properties of the Mandlebrot set or some other equally arcane mathematics.

"Well," she said after a moment, "What do we think?"

---

"This is some bougie shit," Anna added with a roll of her eyes, childishly kicking a rock that lay in front of her. The drugs were fading and she felt suddenly annoyed. Angry even. Why was she out of her bed? Why was she staring at a murder scene? Why hadn't they bought more donuts? That was the real question. The really important question.

Grabbing a nearby stick, she poked idly at the ink-stained gravel. It was ink she reasoned with an annoyed frown. There wasn't much she could tell from just looking at it. She doubted there was anything more to learn. Other than that it was ink. Gross ink.

"Nothing interesting about this, it's the same gross stuff from before, comrades," she added with a bored shrug as she looked or perhaps glared at Eleanor.

"Looks like the trail leads towards the waterfront, maybe our killer wanted to buy some cool books after their little painting session? I wonder if we are dealing with some jilted artist type? Maybe the magical killer got a bad review and decided to take it out on the dead dude?"