Sometimes Its Best to Let the Dead Die

TW: Violence, mental health, dark themes, swearing

The air was musty and smelled of iron, a result of the blood spilled that night.

Jay dragged her fingers through the gore covering the wall and brought it to her nose. The Corps were right to send her here; the scent of magic lingered in the corrupted alleyway. 

The Corporation for the Investigation of the Unusual, nicknamed the Magician Corporation or just ‘the Corps,’ dealt with strange crimes like this one. Supernatural crimes. Without the Corps, magic would be exposed to the normal world, causing chaos.

In other words, the Corps kept the magic world from airing its dirty laundry for all to see.

With a flick of her wrist, Jay sent a ball of light spiraling into the sky like a flare. It let other agents in the area know to mark her location as an attack site to help in more accurately pinpointing the rogue magician’s location.

The recent crimes were gruesome even to an experienced investigator like Jay. It was worrying—the corpses had been turned inside out, then mutilated further by necromantic magic. Necromancy was outlawed, and for good reason too: playing with life and death never ended well for either party. 

Usually when performing necromancy, a magician took the magic-core of one person and stuffed it into the dead body.  That dead body then came back as a reanimated puppet with no humanity and bound totally to the will of the necromancer.

Recently, however, the remains of experiments had been reported—albeit indirectly—to the Corps by the non-Mage police. 

Alex appeared beside her in a flash, his grip on his wand tight. “Damn. This one’s worse than the last. Could you identify the victim?”

Jay shook her head. The bodies were husks mauled past the point of recognition. “I don’t even think the core specialists will be able to. The core was shattered completely so even in death they will never find peace.”

“I’ll take the information back to the Corps. Go home and rest, you have an early morning and you’ve barely slept in the past two weeks.”

Jay laughed bitterly. “How can I rest with someone like this still out there? I’ve canceled my last two classes because my non-Mage job isn’t worth wasting time I could be using to investigate.”

“We’ll put an end to this, I promise, but right now you need to make sure you don’t burn yourself out.” He put a reassuring hand on her shoulder.

“I guess you’re right.” Jay smiled sadly. “I’ll see you.”

While overseeing her students’ exam, Jay checked her phone constantly, restless and hoping for some results.  Alex promised to text if something happened, but Jay wasn’t optimistic; they hadn’t gotten any closer to finding the culprit in the past month.

When the clock hit 6:45 pm, Jay collected the exams and dismissed the students. Unfortunately, her class was one of the latest, starting at 5:15 pm. Curse her sleep schedule.

Jay grabbed her coat and slung it over her shoulders, locked her classroom, and rushed out of the building.

The sun was already down, casting long shadows over the premises. Normally, this wouldn’t be any cause for concern, but Jay’s nerves were frayed and she could sense deep in her core that something was wrong. Jay’s instincts rarely led her astray.

A spell sparked at her fingertips as a scream pierced the air. Jay’s head snapped up just in time to see a girl topple out of the sixth floor of the campus. The magic buzzed across the field, cushioning the girl’s fall, but the screaming did not stop.

Jay darted over, the words forming on her tongue falling away as she got a better look at the girl.  Her skin was gray and tight around her skeleton, her eye sockets hollow and leaking black liquid where blood should have been. Her mouth was locked open in a scream.

A chill raced down Jay’s spine when she realized the screaming hadn’t stopped so someone was still up there—

Abandoning her purse, Jay crashed through the doors and tore through the halls and up the stairs, lungs screaming and senses haywire from the adrenaline.

She choked on a cry as her back met the wall with a sickening thud. The feral eyes of a werewolf bored into her own, frighteningly close to her face. Claws tore through her abdomen, sending her tumbling down a flight of stairs. Jay groped blindly for her silver bullets—werewolves couldn’t use magic while transformed to defend against them.

Bang. Bang. The werewolf howled and dashed toward her. Shit, she must’ve missed its vital organs in her haste. Drawing on her magic, Jay loosed a spell that sent the werewolf flying over the railing and gave her the opportunity to make it to the landing of the sixth floor.

She closed her eyes, trying to figure out which direction the necromantic magic wafted from besides everywhere because it was so overpowering. Jay only then realized the screaming had been cut off.

When she finally burst through the classroom door, her stomach twisted and bile rose in her throat. The scene was nearly identical to the horror in the alley from the night before.

She was too late. Fury tore through her—at herself, at the rogue magician, at the werewolf—she had been right there, but she was still too late. 

A gust of wind swept through the room and brought her attention to a piece of folded paper about to fly out the window. Catching it, she noticed it was sticky with blood. After all this time, could there finally be a lead? It wasn’t the victim’s, that she knew for sure; it reeked of tainted magical energy.

She held her breath as she opened it. 

The picture was ripped to remove a person from its frame, but it showed a girl smiling weakly from a hospital bed.

Pulling out her phone, Jay dialed a number and hit the green call button with shaking hands.

“Hello, I have an attack to report.”

“Another one?” Alex’s voice sounded worried through the static.

“Yes, but this time I think we might have a lead.”

“Her name is Lydia and she was living with her father, Tyler, until her death around two years ago,” Alex read from the file in his hand.

Loss, Jay understood, was hard. It felt impossible to escape the tides of grief, like drowning. Jay would give anything to see her sister again, but she knew trying to bring her back would tarnish her memory. Sometimes, it was better to let things go, even if it hurt like hell. “What do we know about Tyler?”

“He’s an average member of society, no criminal record, no reason to suspect him.”

“I think we should go talk to him.”

“Shouldn’t we confer with the Corps, first?”

Jay’s lips tightened. “You go to the Corps, I’ll check Tyler out.” She took the file from Alex.

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?”

“It’s the only lead we have, and if it is him, I can’t let him run around killing more people.”

Alex sighed. “Alright, fine.” He reached into his pocket, taking out a small gem. “Take this. It’s enchanted for protection.”

Jay took the jewel and held it up to the window.  It glittered a bright green in the sunlight, and she could sense the magic imbued beneath its surface. “Thanks, Alex. I’ll be careful.”

The house looked like every other house in the neighborhood, but it still sent a pang of unease through Jay, and she just knew she was in the right place.

Nobody answered when she rang the doorbell even though a car was in the driveway. At first she thought maybe Tyler was with a neighbor, but then the door swung open on its own.

A girl stood in the doorway, her face blank and her eyes dull but filled with anguish. Jay suppressed a shiver when she realized who it was.

Lydia, the dead girl from the picture.

Her movements were stiff and robotic.  She didn’t look human, but her eyes held a spark that no undead ever did despite the hollowness they held from her death.

Lydia’s face twisted in pain. “Please. Help me. Stop him.” Her voice was ragged, barely reaching above a whisper. “It hurts. I want to go. Let me go.” Her voice rose to a scream as she chanted. “Let me go. Let me go, let me go, let me go letmegoletmeLETMEGO!”

Jay could only stand, watching in wide-eyed horror. What had this man done to his daughter?

Jay prepared her magic when she saw Tyler hurrying down the stairs, trying to soothe his daughter from afar. “It’s ok, Lydia. I’ll fix this, then we can be together and happy again. I’m so close, I just need to try one more time.”

“I can’t let you do that, Tyler.” The words fell out of Jay’s mouth, and it felt like she was puppeteering her own body, like she was disconnected from the scene before her.

Tyler stumbled back, dragging the once again blank faced Lydia with him. “No, no, no, you won’t take this away from me,” he mumbled frantically, a crazed look in his eyes. 

“Take what away from you? Your husk of a daughter whose soul is begging you to let her move on?” Jay’s voice broke. “It’s not right.”

“What’s not fair is that my daughter was taken away from me.” He curled into himself. “I won’t let her be taken away again!”

He flung his hand out and magic exploded from his fingertips, slamming into Jay before she could react. So much for deescalating the situation.

Then, he was on her with a knife, swinging it uncontrollably. “Just. Leave. Us. Alone!”

Jay realized the initial blast had reflected off her instead of connecting, leaving her less dazed—Alex’s protection charm.  It still wouldn’t protect her from a knife.

Lightning wreathed her hand and she grabbed Tyler by the neck. He thrashed in her grip, but it was rendered useless by the lightning. He fell to the ground in a heap.  Lydia stood watching impassively, returning to her detached state.

Jay drew her own knife and stepped over Tyler’s unconscious form over to her. Jay gently cupped Lydia’s face in one of her hands. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

Then she slit Lydia’s throat.