Krahe closed out day 2 of the investigation into this particular case with initial preparations for Barzai’s evolution ritual, followed by working out the beginnings of Wandrei Faust’s sibling theurgy. As she leaned back in her chair, crushing beetle-like beans between her molars and fiddling with her cigarette-roller, she inwardly questioned why the reagent for Barzai’s evolution ritual was Semzar’s souldregs. For the first time since the raid, Barzai responded — inside her own head, he repeated Krahe’s words back to her: "This is what I do. This is what I am. I don't know how to do anything else.”

  He then continued with a bassy, somewhat distorted male voice, choppy and cobbled together: “A creation — wrought in the maker’s image. A mirror — reflecting the self. I shall sup. Upon the ruin of the wretched. The anguish of evil, thwarted. Sinners, punished. A despair most pure. Most delectable.”

  Once again he fell silent, and one last time his voice returned, this time mimicking a calm, older man, a documentarian perhaps: “Even with their stores for the winter secured, if prey offers itself, they will swallow it whole…”

  The sound of a magnetic tape skipping.

  “…and from the scorching heat of the surface, they return to their home in the water to undergo metamorphosis.”

  With that, Barzai fell silent again. The message couldn’t have been more obvious — Semzar’s souldregs were the main reagent. But that didn’t mean there could only be one.

  On day 3, enough of the moving parts fell into place that Krahe didn’t feel any reservations about forcing the rest of it to fit. She had been able to observe the suspects thoroughly enough to establish a clear pattern, and perhaps more damningly, she had discovered clear evidence of soundproofing of both the mundane and arcane kinds on two of their houses - Joe Ogura’s and Aldritch Herebor’s houses, specifically. Having caught Joe Ogura on his way home from work, she trailed him, waiting for him to go in and walk up the stairs before she broke in. The front door’s lock gave way with a half-hearted raking. She wasted no time making her way up the stairs, fully expecting that Ogura’s soundproofing didn’t shut out sounds from outside — this assumption proved itself correct when she found the door not just locked, but also barred from the other side, despite the fact it had a bracket for a heavy bar on the outside.

  Skimming through, she immediately felt the outside world’s sounds become a bit more distant while remaining clearly audible. More importantly, however, Ogura’s bald head gleamed in the moonlight as he tried to stuff his sizable frame through the window, doing so with a speed and agility that made it clear he’d done it before. In his left hand, which was still inside, he gripped a revolver, popping one shot after the next at Krahe. All three missed — two struck the door, while the third came a bit closer, piercing the wall as Ogura adjusted his aim towards her actual location. The smell of the room finally hit Krahe’s nostrils. Urine, sweat, semen, acetone, in that order. To say there wasn’t much of a fight would’ve been giving Ogura too much credit. The man, even if he knew how to fight, had hobbled himself in the attempt to escape, and Krahe had liberated his left shoulder of its socket within the span of a few breaths. It hadn’t even been intentional — Krahe had simply grabbed his arm to drag him back into the room, and the joint just gave way when she pulled.

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  While Ogura groaned in pain, he hadn’t crumpled, and there was nothing to suggest he questioned why this was happening. Not wanting to waste time, Krahe just dragged him to his bed, shoved him onto the soiled mattress, and bound him by the shackles still attached to the bedposts. Given the general filth covering the rest of this den, she didn’t find the bed all that questionable.

  Reaching out with a tendril of tar, she pulled the chair from under the doorhandle and sat down before Ogura. They stared at eachother for a good twenty seconds without a word spoken, Ogura breathing heavily as the pain of his shoulder settled in.

  “I’m curious. Why do you think I’m here?” Krahe asked.

  “The-” he began, only to bite his tongue as his thoughts caught up to his mouth.

  “You know, your teeth have flesh inside them. Have you ever seen a kernel pop in the pan? Ever wonder what that feels like? I can show you. Or you can make things easy for me and answer by questions. I’ll ask you again: Why do you think I’m here?”

  Joe weighed his options. He weighed them hard, so hard Krahe could almost see the reflection of his sweaty dome shifting as the cogs inside turned and turned.

  “The Oldfield girl? It’s gotta be her. Nobody before her tried-”

  Again, Ogura bit his tongue.

  “Of course there were others before her,” Krahe remarked, writing it down. “Are you keeping her in Herebor’s house? Somewhere else? Or did you send her off?”

  She was shooting blind, and Ogura didn’t speak right away. However, based on his reactions, she still got a good idea of things.

  “So you do send them off once you’re done with them? Know where? Or is it a dead-drop in more ways than one?”

  Again, he kept quiet. Krahe raised her arm. A rising hum began to sound as scarlet light flooded the twilit room. Slowly building, bit by bit, adjusting things here and there without any great deal of thought. Ogura had begun babbling to wait, but he didn’t say anything interesting or substantial enough to make her stop.

  “I don’t fuckin’ dispose of them, alright?! Youssef does! He talks about his guy with Aldritch sometimes, some grafter or whatever. I never pay attention to him.”

  She still let the thaumaturgy rip, only adjusted her aim upward a bit. With a sound of steel wire snapping combined with the ominous bass of a high-wattage electric arc, the brickwork of Ogura’s wall became melted slag, carved like wet clay with an ominous, five-pronged spiral pattern. Krahe was pleasantly surprised by the degree of power retention at this range, yet annoyed at herself for not paying attention.

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