Hastum
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49. Poor craftsmanship
🕑 Added 2025-08-30 10:21:18 +0000 UTCThe cat looked at me flatly. “Okay, where are you going with this, aside from torture critique?”
“The torture critique is the point. I thought that they figured out the curse and then smashed his head. But now I think it was the other way around. They smashed his head, and someone really sensitive to magic sensed the curse let go as the flesh was destroyed. All this setup was done afterward. In a hurry,” I said, looking around, trying to picture the scene.
“Okay, but why not just evacuate? It doesn’t make sense. Why risk being found out for something like this? Just to intimidate?”
“No.” I shook my head, my eyebrows furrowed.
I approached the corpse, pointing at a stab wound in the abdomen. “Look here. This might look like some terrible torture, but this is amateurish. If you ever want to weaken someone for a ritual, you would never just stab them like that. This wound goes straight through the iliac artery. You sever it, and he would bleed out in minutes, losing sensations even faster. The same goes for the other wounds. Most of them don’t hit any particular weak points in the body, so whoever did it is neither a professional interrogator nor a ritualist. I would bet that the stabs were made post-mortem. The first wound was to the head, and it was fatal.”
The cats tilted their heads. “Okay, but I still don’t get it. Why all the blood and the message?”
I started to turn around the room. “There is something here they didn’t want us to find. Something they couldn’t take with them.”
Now the cats also started to look around.
I did not pay much attention to my audience as I was thinking out loud. “It is a distraction, the drink, the blood, the note. The table is in a different style from the furniture in this room, so they probably dragged it here after. Any professional could torture the guy with barely any blood spilling or have it splatter where it’s supposed to. It’s meant to look like they had time to torture and prepare. To buy time for… Fuck,” I swore, realizing what would be the next move if they had something we were not supposed to find. “They called the police.”
“What?!” Q’Shar exclaimed. “That would be risky.”
“Yes, but they went through all this effort to make sure we don’t find something. I think they did. I know I would.”
The cats looked at one another. “Okay, where should we look?”
What happened here? I tried to figure out the scene. It was the key to solving the mystery. We checked the desk and anything with drawers, and it all came up empty, nothing under the paintings either. So what was it?
Something out of the ordinary, something that didn’t fit the picture.
“Do you see anything interesting?” I asked.
“Nope, hard to concentrate with that smell,” replied my broker.
And then we heard it. Police sirens in the distance.
“I’m afraid we have to evacuate,” one of the gray cats said as it entered the room. “We will tell the driver to move the car to an alley, but we don’t have much time. At least you and the tiger.” The feline finished, pointing his tail at me.
I shook my head. “There has to be something here.”
“Okay, if you say so, I believe you.” Q'Shar turned to the tiger. “Bakari. Stall them. And someone get him a wet cloth so he doesn’t leave bloody paw prints. Leave the metal claws here.”
The tiger nodded and walked out of the room. I could hear a deep breath he took immediately after leaving the apartment.
I turned to Q’Shar with a raised eyebrow, question clear on my face.
The cat just smiled. “A tiger suddenly jumps onto the police car, roars at the men, and then goes into the building. What do you think they will do?”
I thought for a second. “No idea.”
“Yep, they probably don’t have any idea either. It should give us some time. Let’s just hope they don’t have their bodycams on, so that the Vatican doesn’t become a pain in the ass.”
I nodded and turned to the room, looking for any discrepancy. Then a sound came from an open window. “Holy fuck. What is that!?” Followed by a roar and frantic calls on the radio.
It gave us a bit of time, but we were nowhere near solving the mystery.
“The brain splatters are weird,” the orange cat suddenly stated, looking at the wall behind the dead man.
I also checked it out and saw what he was talking about. Most of the brain and remains of the head were lying between the open legs of the corpse, as if someone swung something heavy to the back of his head, but some parts of the skull were stuck to the wall, which didn’t match the splatter on the ground.
“Good catch.” I came closer to it. There was a small dent, covered in blood, with bits of the head still sticking to the wall. The guy probably hit it with a lot of force. If I had to guess by the placement of the dent, he got hit right in the face.
And then it dawned on me.
The scene of what happened slowly came to my mind.
“The family has some sort of recognizable technique, probably a fist attack that can be easily traced back to them. The head of the family or someone responsible for negotiations is easy to anger and flies off the handle quickly.”
“How would you know that?” The orange cat asked. “You think the first technique took his skull apart?”
“No, they smashed it later to cover their tracks. I think it went like this.” I said and went to stand over the pushed-over chair. “He comes here and starts arguing. And then he does something. Something that pisses off the guy enough to attack. A threat, maybe. But no… they would see threats coming. Something sudden that caused an outburst of violence.”
More sirens could be heard in the distance, accompanied by movement in the building, then a roar of a tiger. After some time, Bakari was back.
The massive feline came into the room. “I stalled them, but now they have their hands on their guns. Also, some people are starting to look at what is happening. I managed to get here without being seen by anyone else, but we have to start moving. They will be checking the building once backup arrives.”
We were on the fourth floor, so we didn’t have much leisure.
“Okay. So our dead man does something. And the guy sitting at the desk goes into action, landing the attack square on the man’s face. The attack smashed the nose bridge where the curse sat, and someone noticed it.”
I turned towards the body. “They have to leave something important behind, so they smash the body so that we don’t recognize the technique, leave it after covering the room in blood, and once they are away, they call the police, so we don’t have much time. But why?”
The characteristic sound of police radios could now be heard inside the building.
“Hurry up, please,” my broker urged.
I tried remembering the guy, something about him to help me solve this.
He was well-dressed. Something about his clothes stood out? No.
The other two guys who were also in the car. Did I recognize them? No, I still came up blank.
His dagger?
I stopped for a second.
The dagger he managed to cut me with. I saw this design somewhere else.
It hit me. Nathan! The kid in Brazil specialized in throwing weapons. His daggers, the ones used for combat, had a similar design with a balanced, smooth blade and a thin handle to make them easier to throw if needed.
This guy must have also specialized in throwing weapons.
But what does that give me?
Did he throw something?
At the man behind the desk?
But then he would be ready for a counterattack instead of taking it straight to the face. He did something that was more of a threat.
Maybe said something, but would words cause that much of a reaction?
Possible. But still something was missing.
The police seemed to finish sweeping the first floor.
I cast Watcher’s Circle.
The room came into focus in my mind, as if a model of it had been inserted into my mental landscape for me to observe.
There should be some discrepancy. The guy came to get his reward. They didn’t want to give it to him.
An idea popped into my head.
The wall to my left was on the side of the street. The one behind me led to another apartment, so that leaves the wall to my front and my right.
I focused on the wall behind the desk. And sure enough, through my spell, I could sense that the blood there was a bit thicker, more of it smeared. I approached it to get a closer look.
But I didn't notice anything at the first glance.
I then dragged my fingertip through the red sticky liquid.
And I felt it.
A small hole, it was covered with blood, making it invisible, but I could feel it under my finger.
I took my dagger and tried widening the opening left by the blade. But when I pulled my weapon for another stab, the whole wooden plank came out. It was attached to the wall using magnets.
Clever.
There was a small safe behind it. And the moment I saw it, I started laughing.
“What’s so funny?” asked the tiger, confused.
I pointed at the hidden compartment.
It was a small hidden safe, built into the wall, with an electric panel for opening. The panel was broken with a hole right in the screen, making it impossible to open. The guy must have thrown the dagger to show he knew where the reward was and ended up blocking the safe. They should have used one with runes instead.
“Holy shit,” chuckled the orange cat.
“Yeah. I think you will have to check out the guy from the car. He really had to have a massive ego to think no one would attack him after throwing a dagger during a meeting, even as a warning.”
“But we can’t open it either,” Q’Shar said, noticing what we were talking about.
That wiped the smiles from our faces.
The police made their way through the second floor, judging by the sounds of the radios. To make it worse, some people started to walk out of their apartments, and some started to wonder what that smell was.
“We don’t have the time, Sam, we have to get you and Bakari out of here.”
“I want whatever is in that safe,” I said firmly. “Go to the other room.”
“What?”
“I’m about to use eldritch magic, you don’t want to see it,” I said.
I saw some hesitation in the orange cat, accompanied by curiosity.
I turned to him. “You really don’t want to,” I smiled a wide grin. “Curiosity killed the cat, you know.”
“Fuck’s sake Sam, was that the eldritch magic,” grumbled Q’Shar as they all walked out.
I chuckled at my own joke. But went back to seriousness right after. I could not afford any mistake here.
Taking a large breath, I invoked the contract. It was the second time today, and I felt the strain as a headache assaulted me. I had my eyes closed for now, but the spell required me to see the target.
I opened my eyes, just barely, concentrating on the safe.
Squirming void
The air behind me cracked as tentacles adorned with sucking and squirming mouths crawled out. Only three showed, allowing me to keep my concentration, as any more would not be possible to control today.
“Attack,” I spoke in the tongue of the abyss.
But as the last letter left my mouth, I felt my concentration slip. The burden of using the void twice in a single day was too much.
Two tentacles went for the steel front panel of the safe, as the third almost bit me instead. With a flex of will rewarded by a sharp shot of pain, I stopped it before it struck. But the magic was slipping from my grasp. I looked up to the safe, ignoring the whispers telling me I could just will the metal to turn into flesh and give me what was inside. I ignored the pained scream of existence suffering the presence of the abyss.
The safe stood still, closed. The attack was not enough.
I had maybe one more swing in me before the magic went out of my control. With one last flex of will, I gave another command.
“Crush.”
But this time it went for the concrete around the compartment.
The tentacles bit into it, but it was not enough to pull out the safe. I wanted to attack again, but felt them stiffen.
“Shit,” I swore, quickly ending the spell.
The black appendages rose like angered snakes and turned toward me, opening their many mouths.
The rift closed just before they struck as I fell to my knees.
Probably sensing the lack of the strange presence that must have emanated from the room for a while, the cats walked back, immediately going for me.
“What the fuck happened. You look like you were hit by a truck in the half a minute we were away!” exclaimed Q’Shar.
“Yeah,” I groaned. “And I feel even worse. Can you take it out?” I then asked the tiger, pointing at the safe.
He tilted his head, looking at it, then the metal covers on his paws shone with mana, and he attacked the remaining wall. Three strikes later, the whole thing came out.
It was small, smaller than a microwave, but clearly strongly armored. The tiger approached it and managed to get a good bite, locking its teeth into the dents left by my first attack. I saw the feline’s neck strain, but it managed to lift it.
We then heard the police slowly enter the fourth floor.
“Hello?!” Someone at the door, finally curious about the smell and strange sounds, knocked on the door.
There was now a large crowd outside.
“Heeello?” The question came as police entered the floor.
