Law of Shadows

Chapter 1: ~Alone~

“They were powerful, yet they struggled to find their purpose. Humans called them gods. They achieved the heavens, yet they fell to the darkest places. There, they found their true nature. They didn’t exist to create and destroy. Their gifts foretold a far more cruel fate. They were the enemies of the gods.”

- A memory of the Old Ones.

***Carinthia***

I march forward, carefully placing one foot after the other on the ice. This winter was unexpectedly cold and so the huge lake froze for the first time in years. The lights of the city and various villages around the lake are dimmed by the heavy fog. Slowly, the fog is crystallizing into beautiful ice shards all over the lake, preparing a marvellous scene once dawn comes. But right now it’s still dark. The sound of my feet crushing the ice is the only noise out here.

I hate the weather since it makes me depressed. Unfortunately it’s a regular occurrence in this valley at pretty much all times of the year except for summer. The mountains around the lake are a natural protection which also hinder the fog from lifting. So that means that we get foggy weather for half the time. Or at least high fog if it isn’t actually settling to the ground. At least the weather makes it unlikely that anyone can see what I am doing out here in the middle of the night.

Wheezing, I pull my large bundle a little further. The light of the city is my only navigation point, but I am quite sure that I am on the right track. My goal is a hole which is kept ice-free by fishers. I have certain reasons to visit it from time to time. There is a possibility to get rid of my trash at another location, but that place belongs to divers. And they also tend to pursue their hobby at unsaintly hours, so this place is my best option if I don’t want to get interrupted.

Of course I could make a new hole right here and now, but covering it up afterwards would be problematic. So I endure the chore of pulling my bundle across the ice. It’s bound with thick rope which I have wrapped around my waist to ease the effort of pulling the weight. At first I thought that pulling the thing across the ice would be easy, but the damned ice shards make it harder than it was supposed to be.

Several minutes and a lot of crunching later, I finally arrive at my destination. The hole is about one meter in diameter and already has a thin crust of ice. That probably means that the fishers went home early today. Grunting, I use my boot to crush the ice and silently give my thanks to the invention of Gore-Tex. Getting wet now would be the final highlight of a shitty day.

Once my work is complete, I settle down and chuckle at the thought of being discovered now. A man in black attire and a black overcoat, with a strange, white bundle which he apparently brought by foot all the way out here from the shore.

I reach into my pocket and retrieve the cigarettes. Normally I don’t smoke. Actually I never smoke. But some days are simply so shitty that I need cannabis to relax a little. Otherwise I might kill someone and I want to avoid that. The guy who provides me with the stuff assured me that the cigarettes are one hundred percent natural. Even the paper wrapping is made from tea leaves.

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After a minute of calming my mind, I pull out the firecrackers and light the first one with the cigarette. And off into the hole it goes. The water bubbles a little until the firecracker explodes under water with an almost imperceptible ‘thud’.

Totally unimpressive, but it accomplishes the task. Sometimes I really don’t understand humans. To outlaw something so essential to life as firecrackers. I understand weapons and drugs. There are some really dumb individuals out there. The less possibilities they have to get their hands on harmful stuff the better.

But firecrackers? What will they do next? Tell us to use kitchen-knifes only with safe-guards? I am really glad that I stowed away enough firecrackers to last me a lifetime. The few I need to summon my minion don’t amount to much. It’ll be a long time in the future until I have to find something else that pisses him off enough to investigate the source of the turmoil.

I am about to throw the eleventh firecracker when a big, round head surfaces from the water. The man in the lake opens his mouth, correction: maw, exhaling water and revealing several rows of needle-like teeth. Without hesitation, I throw the firecracker right down his throat. He chokes and swallows, which is followed by his throat bulging as if it belongs to a toad. Coughing, he throws up the remains of the firecracker and puffs of smoke.

When he is finally done, he looks at me accusingly with his dead fish-eyes. “Why do you pollute my lake? I told you that the water tastes bad for days when you do that! And the noise! Have some empathy for aquamarine lifeforms!”

I don’t answer and stare down at him, establishing the point that I am the one who has to be paid respect. There is power in saying nothing.

He flares the nostrils of his big nose and heaves himself out of the water, revealing his dwarf-like body which is covered in a garment of seaweed. I suppose he looks more human than the average member of the paranormal community. If he would put on decent clothes and hold his mouth closed, he would pass as a small guy with Down’s syndrome. The clothes would hide the fact that the rest of his body looks like a bloated up, drowned corpse.

After a penguin-like manoeuvre of landing in front of me and shoving himself to his feet, he addresses me again, “Just tell me what you want. The kids are hungry and my wife is expecting me at home.”

He always boasts about how fast and gracile he is in the water, but when I see him on land that’s hard to believe. I blow out a ring of smoke, intentionally in his direction, and point the cigarette at the bundle. “Disposal job.”

The man in the lake pulls back his lips, revealing his teeth. After coughing up more water, he looks at the bundle. “No way! I only take corpses. This one is still alive. And you should stop smoking that stuff. It’s dimming the mind. Didn’t your parents teach you better?”

Actually they did. The fact that I am smoking this stuff is the only reason you are still alive. Otherwise I would have ripped out your throat on your first sentence. Yeah, actually I am glad that I still feel chilled. Everything is okay, no reason for rape and murder. Okay, in his case murder alone is the preferable option.

And he is useful. If I kill him, I would have to find a replacement. Too much effort.

I wish cannabis would have the same effect on me as it has on normal humans. Sadly, all I get is a somewhat relaxed state. It helps me a lot to deal with other paranormals. The wish to rip them apart and spill their guts is less strong.

“Okay, Paul.”

“My name isn’t Paul. It’s-” He opens his mouth wide and produces a strange, gurgling sound.

I throw the rest of the cigarette into the lake, much to the annoyance of the man in the lake. Using his real name is too much of an effort. I suppose I could reproduce the sound if I had a glass of water at hand.

Reaching under my coat, I retrieve my trusty Glock 17 and screw on the silencer. Then I unload half the magazine into the twitching bundle. The movements stop and red fluid starts seeping through the cloth. Should have done that before Paul arrived. “It’s dead. Take it. I don’t want to see it again any time soon.”

The man in the lake shakes his head. “Smells bad. What did you kill this time? A zombie? Necromancer? It’s definitely undead. Something like that doesn’t enter my lake.”

I hiss and aim the gun at the stupid toad. This is already taking too long. I could be at home by now and watch movies. “Stupid toad. It’s a lich and I neither have the time to kill him again and again until he finally decides to stay dead, nor do I want to chain him somewhere, just to have him come after me once he breaks free.”

Stepping closer, I wave the pistol in front of his face. “We have a deal. Or don’t you remember when I took care of the Japanese kappa invasion? You promised to dispose of my trash.”

The toad bristles. “I thought that I agreed to tasty, human bodies. Not troublesome, moving meat.”

A low growl escapes from deep down inside my throat. “There is no way that I would feed you humans. Nobody cares if a human body is found in the city. It isn’t even worth the effort to move them. Our deal always meant corpses of troublesome supernaturals.”

He looks down the barrel of my gun for several long moments, then he turns and starts pushing the bundle towards the hole. “I suppose that it’s not bad to have a regrowing source of meat. The little ones won’t mind that it tastes bad.” Then he drops into the water, right after the bundle.

And is gone.

It takes me a small eternity to realize that he left me alone with a trail of blood towards the hole. First he provoked me into shooting the lich, then he left me to clean up the mess. Cursing, I step to the hole and empty the rest of the magazine into the water, just to piss him off. I am sure that there is no way of hitting him. He is probably already half the way to his tadpoles.

I turn around and eye the trail of blood with a grim expression, then I light another cigarette. There is no way that I can leave it like that. The humans will scream ‘mordio’ if they find this. And the blood is already freezing. Not a chance to quickly scrape this off manually. Not if I don’t want to spend the night out here.

Normally I avoid using magic at all costs. It’s like lighting a beacon to every fucking supernat with even a small spark of talent. And I want to be at full power at all times. Especially after today. There is definitely something going on in my city and I have a feeling that I’ll have to lay down the law soon. So what do I do?

Being tired is worse than expending a little magic. And I suppose that nobody can connect it to me if I use it out here. I wave my hand and imagine a blade of force, drawing on the pool of power within me. With one scrape, I clean out the trail and dump everything in the water.

Now I am left with a nice, blank surface. Still suspicious and strange, but no reason to call the authorities. Maybe the ice crystals grow enough to make it look less suspicious until tomorrow.

One can hope.

I stay there for a few more minutes, smoking and looking at the lights of the city. My city. And someone is trying to mess with it. For some reason a lot of fortune hunters are casting away their fear and throwing themselves into my territory, searching for someone.

Today, I had to decapitate a group of vampires who tried to establish a new nest. Then there was a stupid werebear who thought that he could prowl through my city like an elephant through a porcelain store. And to crown the day, a lich tried to take over the central graveyard. A strong one on top of that.

A wonder that I managed to keep the human exposure to supernats minimal. One old lady had a heart attack when the werebear broke through the wall of her bedroom. I shrug. The old hag would have died soon anyway.

My thoughts return to the lich. He talked about a big price if he found someone. Sadly, there wasn’t much to get out of him. Most lichs are insane by nature. His mind was already a mess when I picked it apart and disassembled him.

Contrary to popular belief, lichs are beings of flesh and blood. A bit bony and more skin than flesh, but still beings who breathe. They just have inherited a particularly strong gift for the necromantic arts, turning themselves into almost immortal beings. Immortal, but not unbeatable. I shot him, chopped him to pieces, burned him to ash, and the bugger still dared to come back. When I realized that he would slowly reassemble himself no matter what I did, I collected all his pieces and brought him here.