Contractbound

Graham rang the bell and after waiting for some time the sound of footsteps got closer. Someone opened the door a little and looked at Graham who was outside. The woman inside the house seemed to recognize him.

"Aren"t you the detective from upstairs? Can I help you?" she asked politely.

"Do you know the friend who found the body of the dead woman next door?" he asked straightforwardly.

The woman went silent. She seemed to remember the fact that someone next door had been killed after forgetting it. "Her name is Marieke Odekirk. Her room is number 38," she said shortly and quickly, trying to end the conversation as soon as possible.

"Thank you very much," said Graham, and the woman nodded and closed her door.

"Val, if everyone answered questions like her, we could avoid so much ha.s.sle," muttered Graham while walking upstairs to the third floor.

Creak...

The floorboard made a loud noise as he stepped on them. The old apartment building was due for a renovation, but the landlord hadn"t done anything about it yet. The landlord was a very old man and he was adamant about preserving the building as it was. At least Graham"s room had been renovated, so he didn"t really care about the creaking corridor, although it could be very annoying when he needed to be stealthy.

He reached the third floor soon after and headed straight to room number 38. He rang the bell and waited for an answer.

...

There was no answer. He rang the bell again and waited.

...

Still no answer. It was either Marieke was not home or she was avoiding any guests. Graham rang the bell one more time and when there was still no answer, he tried to open the door to the apartment. It was unlocked!

Graham didn"t enter the apartment right away. He tore a piece of paper from his notebook and wrote a divination question.

"Someone is inside this apartment."

He burned the paper and the flame very slowly consumed only a part of the paper before going out by itself, indicating a negative response. There was no one hiding inside waiting to ambush him. Graham cleaned the ashes from the floor and threw them away in the nearest bin. After that, he opened the door carefully and entered the room. He closed the door behind him and locked it from the inside using the latch for safety measures.

The apartment room of Marieke looked very neat and minimalistically decorated. The living room where Graham was had a TV, a sofa, a chair, and a coffee table, and it was decorated with a vase of flowers placed on an end table. The right side of the sofa seat looked slightly sunken, indicating frequent use, while the other was not. It was highly likely that she lived alone there. Just like Graham"s room, the sunlight couldn"t penetrate all the way to the living room so he had to turn on the light to see. He was wearing gloves so he wouldn"t leave fingerprints behind.

Graham had turned on his Supersight to look around better, but there was nothing noteworthy in the living room, except the newspaper on the table near opposite the sofa, so he moved along to the bedroom. The apartment layout was seemingly similar to his, so he knew which door led to the bedroom right away. The bedroom was as neatly arranged as the living room, and the size was similar to his own. He went straight to the bed to look under the bedsheet but found nothing. He then went to the drawers near the bed and opened them one by one. Inside the topmost drawer, there was a book that looked to be a diary.

It was extremely rude to read someone"s diary, especially if the person was still alive. However, he needed to find clues about the murder, and the fact that she ran away from him made him suspect her. He opened the diary from the last page forward to find the most recent entry quickly because he didn"t want to read everything that she had written. It didn"t take long before he stopped on a page that only had a single line on it. After that page, the pages were blank.

"They killed the one I love, so I must find them and kill the ones they love."

Graham read that one line that was full of hatred and vengeance and understood her relationship with Nora, the second victim. What he couldn"t understand, however, was why or how she was in the third crime scene. He found out about the place through divination, so it was either she already knew beforehand or she was just coincidentally there. There was also the third option: she heard about the murder and somehow got there very quickly from wherever she had been before. The third option was unlikely, but not impossible since Graham didn"t understand the full extent of Contractbounds" powers.

Judging from the diary entry, it seemed that she was not the killer, but until definite evidence was found, it couldn"t be ruled out entirely. She could even have found a clue to the real killer, so either way, Graham had to find her. He turned the diary page over to the earlier pages, but they were all blank; there was no other entry besides that one line. He closed it and put it back in the drawer before returning the drawer to its initial state.

He approached the big wardrobe opposite the bed and opened it. There was a gap in the clothes hanging inside. There were not many clothes in there either as if she had taken them out. Graham hadn"t seen any suitcases either both in the living room and in the bedroom. It was unlikely that she had put it in the kitchen or the bathroom.

"No suitcase, possibly missing clothes. It seems our woman is away, Val. And judging from the state of this apartment, probably she doesn"t plan to go back. She probably knew someone would come here, so she left behind the one-line diary." Graham made a judgment.

He closed the wardrobe giant wardrobe and the wooden doors made a creaking sound. There was nothing else to check in the bedroom, so he made his way to the bathroom first because it was closer. He opened the door to the small bathroom and observed the inside. The layout was pretty similar to his; there was a shower, a bathtub, a toilet, and a washbasin. Strangely, however, there were no toiletries inside. It reinforced Graham"s initial judgment that she had gone away. Graham exited the bathroom and entered the kitchen.

Whoosh!

A cold breeze brushed past him as he opened the kitchen door, but it was gone in an instant. He looked around the kitchen after turning on the light and something on the table attracted his attention right away. It was a ouija board with four extinguished candles on each corner. The planchette was left on the word yes. She seemed to have communicated with something before leaving. Graham had an initial guess of the situation, but he needed to do divination to confirm it, so he put it aside for now. He checked the kitchen thoroughly, even opening the fridge which was oddly empty. Besides the ouija board, there was nothing else of importance, so he left.

After making sure he had left no trace and had returned everything to its initial state, Graham left Marieke"s apartment and went downstairs. He opened his own apartment door and once inside, he saw an envelope lying by the door. Someone had slid it in through the mail slot. He picked it up and sat in his office chair. It was as he had guessed: the mail was about the murder and the sender was unknown. He opened it and read the content.

"Victim"s name/age: Levi Brouwer/32"

"Occupation: teacher"

"Height/weight: 1.82m/80kg"

"Eye/hair color: brown/brown"

"Time/cause of death: judged to be around two hours prior to being found/waiting for autopsy report"

"There is no injury on the victim"s body except the area around his eyes, most likely self-caused. Inside the victim"s house, an image of four interlocking rings with numerous eyes was found. No other suspicious things were found."

The letter ended there.

"It seems the officer I asked to report to me doesn"t know about Pravitatem. It"s probably kept a secret by the higher-ups. So with this, it is evident that Levi Brouwer is the third victim of Pravitatem."

Graham burned the letter and prepared candles for his divination ritual. He had used up five of his attempts today, so he could only ask the important questions next. Once ready, he lit the candles one by one in the usual order and concentrated. He repeated a question in his mind.

"Which Contractbound power was used to kill Levi Brouwer?"

The room got very dark and the flames burned brightly. Within the dancing flames, a blurry image surfaced and he could see with difficulty the shape of a serpent coiling around a heart. The image then shifted abruptly to that of a very horrible figure that brought deep fear to anyone who saw it.

Thump...thump...

Graham"s heart rate increased significantly. He felt like covering his face to stop seeing the figure, but he could still control himself. Thanks to his blurry divination, the effect was not severe. Because of his loss of focus, the image disappeared in an instant, leaving only the burning flames. He then noticed that there was a piece of knowledge that got transferred to his brain as he saw the horrific image.

"The Deity of Serpents and Death..." he muttered.

After calming himself down, he continued with his divination. He needed to confirm something before he would be able to divine his next question, so he took a piece of paper and wrote a statement on it.

"Marieke Odekirk is a Contractbound."

He lit the paper on fire using the candle flames and they burned it completely, which meant the answer was a yes. Since he got his confirmation, he could use divination to ask his next question. He concentrated and repeated it in his mind.

"Which of Marieke Odekirk"s power allows her to communicate with the dead?"

The room became tranquil little by little, which was different from the usual darkness and silence. It felt strangely peaceful. Gradually, a blurry image appeared in the flames. It was of an illusory tongue that seemed to emit the aura of domination. Graham"s focus broke because he was dominated by the tongue and the divination ended there. Another piece of knowledge was transferred to his brain.

Pant...pant...

"The Deity of the Tongue"s power," he said while breathing heavily.