The row of houses of red and black brick extended in a circle around a single ash tree. It was, if nothing else, what Gallaven was known for. A city of clones is what it was called by many, as everything ever built there often came in pairs, in synchronous forms and equal numbers.
Myra stopped the car right at the gate. A small metal plate hung from the fence with a name carved into it.
"Liven Kooiser," said Myra as she suspiciously walked towards the front door. She glanced at Ori before knocking, almost threatening him for wasting her time.
"No one's there," she added and banged on the wood with a lot more strength.
Ori stood patiently beside her, with his hands in the pockets of his black coat and his unusually bright eyes on the door as if he could see what was inside.
It was only moments later that the door opened wide.
An old man stood in the frame, leaning on a long white cane. His murky eyes wandered about, trying to see who it was that came to his door.
"Yes?" he spoke in a thin voice as if it took all his strength to string up a word.
"Mr. Kooiser," Myra began speaking loudly, "We're from the Helden Metropolitan Police," she reached for her badge but her empty pocket was a good reminder she hadn't found it yet. "We are sorry to bother you but there is something we'd like to ask you."
"How may I help?" the man said politely. "Would you care to come in? I can offer you something to drink, perhaps something sweet?"
"No," Ori cut in coldly, pulling Myra by the shoulder. "You borrowed a book from the Central Library of Helden some thirty years ago and failed to return it. May I ask you to hand it over?"
"Oh," Liven gasped. "I didn't imagine they would send police after a borrowed book. What diligent times we live in."
"I think there's been a misunderstanding," Myra said in slight confusion, eyeing both the old man and Ori as she waited for some clarification.
"Do you still have it?" Ori insisted, pushing himself further in between Myra and the door. His hands were now clumped together, as though he was ready to turn the old man to ash.
"I'm afraid not," the man said, as a crooked smile appeared on his face. "Do you know to which book I'm referring?"
The old man's face began to change aggressively, from a melancholic portrait to an intrigue and menace. "Well of course. But I don't have it anymore. I gave it to an old like-minded friend. My eyes are not good for reading any more.
"With every passing moment, the darkness behind the door began to grow, as if the night itself was born inside his house. His murky eyes gleamed up like blue embers and he smiled like a newborn child.
"Who?" Ori stood stiffened on the stairs, as the edges of his coat began to lift from the ground. He was ready to explode with energy, had a single thing gone wrong. "Who did you give it to?"
"Mr. Kooiser, is everything alright?" An unexpected voice came from the street. A woman stood there carrying a small white dog in her arms. It growled the moment it set eyes on the door, but quickly whimpered and hid its head in the woman's jacket. "Do you need some assistance?"
"Keep walking. This is police business," Ori said without moving a muscle. He could not afford to let a second slip by unattended.
The old man kept smiling, now quite monstrously. He did not have the intention to answer any questions, only feed his hunger.
Myra observed the woman for a moment, and then Liven.
"Ma'am, everything is alright." She rushed over to help the woman along the way home before anything unexpected happened.
She did not know why, but some old instinct woke up inside her and told her to stay away once the sound of scraping glass reached her ears.
When she finally turned back to the house, she was hit by a strong gust of wind that cut through the small yard and forced the front door to slam shut. Thin lines of light sparkled in the dark, as though spiderwebs had been made upon the door.
Ori stood on the last step putting the gloves back on his hands. They were as red as if he'd held them under a hot stream of water. She caught his glance but she did not understand what it meant.
"What was that?" Myra asked the moment they were back in the car. "You're going to have to tell me what just happened or I swear-"
"A Farroh," he answered without hesitation. "A carnivorous curse from the old times. It appears human and even possesses strong magical gifts, but It also lures people into its lair and devours them. This one hadn't eaten in a while."
A shiver came down her spine and she put the car into gear, ready to forget the murky eyes of a monster. She's long gotten used to seeing the dead but she did not care to learn about all the other things that should be dead but weren't.
"That smell," Ori growled pulling the air freshener from the reviewer mirror and taking deep whiffs. "Did you not feel it? It's worse than if someone left fermented fish guts in the sun."
"My nose is stuffed," she replied tapping on her nostril. "What's so important about that book, that we had to knock on a monster's door for it?"
"The Lexicon of Malis and other Dead Languages," returned Ori stuffing the little green tree into his coat pocket and tapping it like it was the most precious thing he owned.
"Seriously?" she exclaimed, nearly knocking off the cup of rice with her elbow. Her phone was inside, somehow still alive.
"It is not what it sounds like, I assure you. It's a collection of some of the oldest spells our kind has created. That book is most likely how our killer got to know about the Furik A'Roshet. Except that, this particular book is meant to be used as a book of wisdom so it is also full of dangerous spells that can make people less human if they abuse that knowledge, kind of like a double-edged sword. The book protects itself."
"Is that what happened to that old man?"
"Definitely. This is the pitfall of magic," he added grimly. "He was born with a gift, but it had limits. There was nothing he could do to move past those limits, so he sought to bypass all the trouble of learning and hard work, by abusing the knowledge of those that earned it. Needless to say, his ignorance led him to where he is now."
"And where is he now? What did you do to him?" she asked eyeing his gloves with one eye. No matter how much she wanted to mock him, a part of her feared there was a lot more to his power she did not yet know.
"The Bureau will take care of him. He won't go anywhere."
"Right." She sniffled, struggling to breathe properly. "Again, I must ask, what does all that have to do with the case?"
The spark in Myra's eye started to return as they crossed the threshold and left the suburbs behind.
"Whoever took the book from Liven, is most likely our killer," Ori said after a short silence. He kept looking at the distant towers of Helden, mesmerized by something he could not remember the name of. Years had made the world so hard to recognize, and the light in the distance had the same color as the pyres raised to burn the gifted so many times in the past.
"According to what logic?" she insisted.
"The words Furik A'Roshet were first used by shamans in the eastern marshes before they were all killed off. From what I can recall, they had a ritual of bringing back their dead to live among them for a day as flesh and blood before returning them to the earth. They would make them out of mud, wood, stone, whatever they could find, and then give them life."
"So... like living dolls of a kind?"
"Much more than that. They believed the spirits of the dead would inhibit the new bodies once again and roam free," Ori looked straight ahead, averting his gaze from Helden and its ghosts.
"How does that work in our favour?" Myra paused, stopping the car at the side of the road in a single frantic movement. The frustration was burning her from the inside and she had to understand what was happening one way or another. "The killer would have to have inscribed those words into the bones of his victims during surgery. Then what?"
"There is a good difference in years between the surgeries and initial murders. It takes a great deal of patience but also means there is a reason for it. Five people were killed in the same way in a span of five years. That alone raises a lot of questions."
"We've had several witness reports that the victims complained about someone following them. It may not have been as temporary as we thought. What if… ah gods I don't like this idea… what if he marked them in surgery while they were children and then… watched them live their lives without a clue before he decided to hunt them down."
"Well… yes, that would explain the time gap. But why the spellbook?" Ori shook his head and fixed up his electrified hair. "Why bring Marus back after all this time?"
"To relive the pleasure of killing once again?" Myra could not believe what she was saying and did not want to believe such people even existed. She grabbed the steering wheel and stared at the distance, as a thousand puzzle pieces fell into place all at once.
"All that time, he knew. He prepared for the crimes. After his work was finished, it felt good for a while, until it didn't. He needed more, so he made it happen all over again to experience the murder just like the first time. I wonder if there's a reason he chose them."
"And why only one came back," Myra added getting back on the road.