Raven

Dead birds. Detective Varo had worked hundreds of cases in his lifetime, but this was the first time he had received a call so peculiar. Dead fucking birds.

He lit a cigarette, cupping the flame against the razored cold, drew once, then slid the lighter back into his coat. He inhaled, smoke filling his lungs, that familiar feeling of light-headedness flooding his mind. As he exhaled, he pushed himself off the hood of his car.

“Alia, found anything new?” Varo asked his colleague as he approached her. He ran his free hand through his iron-gray streaked beard. Cigarette smoke mingled with lilac wafted into his nose as he sucked in a sharp breath.

“No, sir. Just more bird carcasses. We should wait for backup, you know.” Alia was kneeling over a bootprint, embedded deep into the churned mud, which had frozen during the night.

Varo chuckled as he took another puff from his cigarette. He looked at the ground where a mound of ravens lay, their legs bent at awkward angles and their eyes open in what may have been terror. His gaze lingered on Alia's doe eyes a moment too long as she gazed back at him.

“No, I’m going in. You can tell the sergeant to radio me if there are any new developments.” Varo dropped his cigarette to the floor, which had been reduced to just the butt, and killed it with his boot heel. He tilted his head upwards, scanning the treeline in what little visibility there was at this hour. Instinctively, his hands went to his belt. Gun, badge, flashlight, and - oh, forgot to load my magazines. Weird, I never forget.

Varo started towards the treeline. Somewhere deeper into the forest, an owl gave a hoot, because a forest at midnight wasn’t scary enough without an owl hooting, of course. Varo continued through the monolithic trees, following a trail of dead ravens. The dead autumn leaves made his presence known to every critter and creature within twenty yards at least, their brittle bodies crunching beneath his weight. He had to watch where he was walking, lest he add insult to injury, or death in this case, to another raven.

After a decent bit of trekking, he came upon a small clearing. The line of dead things had ended somewhat abruptly there, and as he looked further into the clearing, he could see it. Through the thick gloom of the night, there was a man.

He was dressed entirely in black, from his boots to the black robe to the mask. Fucking hell, the mask. It was one of those medieval plague doctor masks.

Varo’s expression fell before he picked it back up. His hand went to his pistol holster, his good old Colt, and he took a step into the clearing. His hand pulled the radio free from his belt with a click.

“Alia, seeing something weird. Where are you?”

Kssht. “Right behind you, sir.”

A gust of wind shifted the underbrush nearby. Another owl called, something deeper in forest answered. The man in black stood utterly still, unnervingly still, his gloved hands to his sides.

“Hey, a bit early for Halloween costumes, isn’t it?” Varo called to the man.

Nothing. Varo was starting to get nervous. He was ten yards away now. Another gust of wind blew the tail of Varo’s coat back, his hand going to his hat to keep it in place. The wind brought with it a gut-wrenching stench—a horrid smell of death and decay. It took everything for Varo to keep his dinner in. He was two yards away now.

“You know anything about these birds?” Varo asked. The man moved his head right, then left, those big eyes burning holes into Varo’s skull.

“That a no?”'

Footsteps from behind, a feeling of immense pressure to the back of the skull, lilac, and Varo’s world was swallowed by the void.

***

Detective Varo woke with a drumbeat of a throb echoing through his head.

Where the fuck am I?

He blinked as his eyes adjusted to the new world he found himself in. A room, maybe six feet wide and long, was illuminated by a single lightbulb hanging by a bare copper wire. In the far back, opposite to Varo, was a door of rotted wood with a pitted brass handle.

“Hello?!” Varo yelled; the sound of his voice was a hammer taken to the anvil of his skull. Then, as he tried to move, he realized the situation he was in.

A thick cord of rope, faded and frayed with age and use, was wrapped tightly around his arms and chest. He suddenly became acutely aware of just how hard it was to breathe.

“Hello?!” Varo called again. He struggled against his bonds for a minute before that acrid smell assaulted his nostrils again. His eyes darted around, to the peeling brown paint of the windowless walls, to the wall hook that seemed to be the only decoration in the room, then to the door. His gun was missing, and so were the rest of his effects.

From beyond the door came a thump, thump, thump. Varo backed away, though not physically; the metal chair he was in had been bolted to the concrete floor. He muttered a silent prayer as he waited for that man in black to open the door.

The doorknob turned, and with a long groan, the door swung open. The man was there again, but in his hand was a sack of grain.

This bastard again.

“I’m a federal agent, you clown. You’re screwing yourself, you know.” Varo tried to sound as menacing as he could, but he knew his face betrayed him. There must have been a quiver in his lip, a break in his voice, maybe, that caused the man to laugh. It wasn’t so much a laugh as a deep, groaning sound that shook the man’s shoulders violently.

Varo’s attention turned to the grain sack. It was unusually dark, and even through the dim light of whatever godforsaken room he had now found himself in, he could tell what made it so—blood, enough blood to thoroughly soak through the fibers and stain it a dark rust. The man in the mask closed the distance between him and Varo with breakneck speed. He opened the sack, and the stench of decay washed over Varo again. This time, he wasn’t strong enough. He folded over, voiding his stomach onto the concrete between his legs. When he had regained his composure, he looked in the sack.

Ravens, tens of them, slaughtered like lambs before a feast. The man in the plague mask set the sack down, not caring enough to avoid the pool of corruption at his feet. From the pocket of his robe, he produced a single threadbare cloth, pressing it against Varo’s mouth. Varo struggled, screamed even, to no avail. The bitter void embraced him once more.

***

The bleakness of the world returned to Varo like an old friend. He was naked now, no, not naked. What the hell is this?

Feathers. Purple-black feathers covered every inch of his body. Varo struggled against his bonds, but his arms flew wildly by his side, as the ropes were no more. He screamed, falling to the floor. He tried with wild abandon to rip the feathers off himself, wretched groans tearing themselves free from his throat.

After ten minutes of failure, he noticed a change in the room. From what was once a lonely hook now hung black robes: those same black robes, and that same damned mask. With great effort, Varo pushed himself off the floor, fighting himself not to look at his now ravaged self.

He made his way to the robes, and from the corner of his eye, he noticed a paper protruding from the pocket. He reached his feathered fingers towards the paper, unfolded it, and began to read the hastily scribbled script.

Sorry, I had no other choice. Thought I was just meeting a girl for drinks. Mira, or whatever that woman who was with you calls herself now, fucked me over. Made me into… well, whatever you are now. Anyway, you’ve got a year to collect those ravens and give them to another poor fucker like you. Screwed for life if you don’t make it in time. Get to it, champ!

The paper slipped from Varo’s fingers, swaying until it found its place on the floor. Understanding bloomed through his body like a fever. When Alia had joined the precinct a month ago, Varo couldn’t shake the feeling she gave him. A weird, tingling sensation he could feel in his teeth that made his hair stand on end.

His instincts had solved hundreds of cases over his seventeen-year tenure. He ignored them once and had invited this horror to his door, all for that damn smile.

After an hour of quiet sobbing, screaming, and trying to tear his feathers away, he made his way to the hook again. Varo donned the robe first, then the mask. His hand brushed against the pitted surface of the doorknob for a second. Then, he grabbed it with all his strength and turned.