Eldritch Guidance

The police headquarters in Graheel hummed with a relentless, weary energy. Officers, clerks, witnesses, and suspects formed a chaotic tide that ebbed and flowed through the sterile halls, a current of muttered conversations, ringing telephones, and the sharp scent of stale tea and anxiety. At the epicenter of a small paper-strewn desk, Detectives Joe Striker and Mike Vahid were an island of tense focus amidst the storm.

Joe leaned forward, his elbows planted on a case file, his eyes sharp and unblinking.

Joe: “And you’re absolutely certain no one from the Nighthounds saw you enter or leave that shop?”

Mike let out a slow breath, his gaze instinctively sweeping their surroundings. He scanned, his eyes tracing the path of a passing clerk, lingering on a loitering civilian by the water cooler. The paranoia was a professional habit, worn smooth by years working in Graheel.

Mike: “You know their network is everywhere, Joe. I can’t guarantee one of theirs wasn’t watching. But I was careful. I didn’t draw attention. I didn’t… agitate the source.” He leveled a flat, meaningful look at his partner. “Unlike some people who seem to think interrogation is a form of casual conversation.”

Joe waved a hand, brushing aside the familiar criticism like a gnat. His focus was a laser, and Mike’s interpersonal diplomacy was not in its beam.

Joe: “The specifics, Mike. He said the requirements of a Deadly Curse mirror the Pursuer Slime incident? A sacrifice… fueled by strong resentment. Those were his exact words?”

Mike shifted in his chair, the creak of leather loud in their bubble of conversation.

Mike: “Not for verbatim, no. The man speaks in… implications. But the connection he drew was clear. The slimes were fueled by strong negative emotion—hatred, betrayal. He indicated that what we’re looking for operates on a similar principle. A source of resentment, consumed to power the curse.”

Joe’s lips pressed into a thin line, his brow furrowing. The expression wasn’t quite skepticism, but the severe friction of a pragmatic mind trying to grasp an esoteric concept.

Joe: “You’re sure you’re not reading too much into it? Not grafting our case onto his metaphor? We’re dealing with a corpse, not a philosophical debate.”

A dry, humorless chuckle escaped Mike. He crossed his arms, a barrier of exasperation.

Mike: “This is rich. Coming from the man whose operational mantra is ‘leave no stone unturned, even if it’s glued to the foundation.’ You drag me to consult a mystical shopkeeper, and almost get us killed over it, and then that same shopkeeper appears to give me some information, and now you’re the one wanting to stick to the forensics report?” He leaned in, his voice dropping. “He knows things, Joe. I just know it. I’m telling you, that resentment might be the key to this.”

Joe let out a long, weary sigh that seemed to deflate his rigid posture for a moment. He pinched the bridge of his nose.

Joe: “Even if resentment is the key, that doesn’t exactly narrow the field. Rob Anvil had a talent for making enemies. Half the East End despised him. Some of them might have hated him enough to do something… profoundly stupid. The kind of stupid that involves offering yourself up on a sacrificial altar just for a shot at posthumous revenge.”

Mike: “What if we cross-reference it with the info you got at the university?” Vahid pressed, leaning forward. “There has to be a connection.”

Joe’s response was a dismissive shrug, his expression clouded with frustration.

Joe: “What they gave me was a history lesson, not a lead. The only verified sources capable of casting a true ‘deadly curse’ are either the rituals of a Nameless God cult, or lost magic from the Mythic Era. I’m ruling out ancient fairy-tale magic. That means we’re looking for a cultist. Rob spent years strong-arming, extorting, and double-crossing everyone from dockworkers to drug peddlers. Any one of them could have been a hidden acolyte. And given what we saw with the Pursuer Slimes—your theory about resentment being a ritual component fits.” He spread his hands in a gesture of futility. “So the question becomes: out of the hundred people Rob ruined, which ones were devout enough to turn their hatred into a sacrament? Cultists don’t exactly wear badges, Mike.”

Mike: “So it’s a dead end?” he asked, the frustration evident in his voice.

Joe: “For now.”

The two sat in heavy silence, the cacophony of the precinct fading into a dull roar around them. Mike studied his partner—the tightness around Joe’s eyes, the obsessive way his fingers tapped the case file. After a few seconds, his expression softened from professional concern into something more personal, more urgent.

Mike: “Joe,” he began, his tone dropping into a low, uncharacteristically gentle register. “I think it’s time we talk. Seriously. About you stepping back from this case. It’s… it’s starting to consume you. It’s not just about Rob anymore. It’s becoming—”

Dan: “Hey guys.”

Dan’s voice cut through the tension like a knife. Both detectives turned to see the young officer weaving his way through the crowded bullpen, sidestepping a clerk buried under a teetering stack of paperwork as he made his way toward their desk. His arrival was a sudden, jarring return to the mundane world of precinct logistics, abruptly halting the personal intervention Mike had been mustering the will to deliver.

Dan: “I just got done talking with Tony,” Lars said, stopping in front of Joe’s cluttered desk. He kept his voice low, leaning in slightly. “He said he needs to see you right now. And he was… insistent. Said not to tell a soul. Not even Chief Murdock.”

Both Joe and Mike raised their eyebrows in unison. Tony wanting to consult on something was routine. Tony issuing a clandestine summons that explicitly bypassed the chain of command was anything but. It carried the electric tang of a secret and danger.

Joe turned to Mike, the earlier, unfinished conversation hanging between them.

Joe: “We’ll talk about this later,” he said, his tone leaving no room for debate. He stood up and started heading towards Ton’s lab.

Mike let out a quiet, resigned sigh before pushing back his own chair. Dan fell into step behind them as the three men navigated the labyrinthine halls of the headquarters. They moved past the buzzing bullpen, down a quieter administrative corridor, and finally into the secured wing that housed the forensic labs. The air grew cooler, smelling of antiseptic and ozone.

They stopped before a heavy, reinforced door labeled ‘FORENSICS LAB 3 – AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY.’ Joe didn’t bother knocking. He grabbed the handle, the mechanism giving a solid clunk, and pushed inside.

The lab was clean and sterile. Gleaming stainless steel tables held microscopes and centrifuges. Shelves were lined with meticulously labeled vials of chemicals in muted hues. The hum of refrigeration units and the faint buzz of fluorescent lights filled the air. At a far table, his back to them, sat Tony. A Bunsen burner hissed with an unnaturally cerulean flame, its heat playing over a small, clamped object—a pocket knife.

Tony was utterly absorbed, holding the knife over the blue fire for a few more seconds before lifting it with the clamp to examine it closely. His face, illuminated from below by the eerie flame, was etched with profound confusion.

Joe: “Tony, we’re here. What’s so urgent?” Striker announced, his voice cutting through the laboratory hum.

Tony startled, nearly dropping the clamp. He swiveled on his stool, but instead of a greeting, he pushed past the three detectives without a word. He went straight to the lab door, stuck his head out into the hallway, and scanned both directions with paranoid intensity. Satisfied the coast was clear, he pulled back inside, closed the door, and threw the heavy lock with a thud.

He turned back to them, his usual professional detachment gone, replaced by a look of harried exasperation. He marched back to his bench and leveled a finger at Joe.

Tony: “Joe. What. The. Fuck. Did you give me?” he demanded, his voice a strained whisper that carried more force than a shout.

Joe was taken aback. He thought their relationship was good with Tony, but he’d never seen the unflappable forensic officer look so genuinely rattled—or so accusatory.

Joe: “What are you talking about?” he asked, his own guard rising.

Tony: “This thing!” he hissed, thrusting the clamp forward. The switchblade dangled, the strange, stylized eye etched into its guard seeming to gleam in the lab’s cold light.

Recognition clicked for Joe. The knife from the Vaal Street house. The one from that hidden safe. He’d bagged it and handed it off to Tony for analysis what felt like ages ago, just before the university joint investigation had sidelined everything else.

Joe: “The Vaal Street evidence,” he stated flatly. “What about it?”

Tony: “Joe, stick your hand out,” he ordered, his voice tight.

Acting on habit, Joe automatically extended his palm. Tony promptly dropped the knife’s handle into it.

Joe: “Gah! Tony, what the hell!” he yelped, flinching and letting the blade clatter to the floor. He shook his hand, expecting to feel the searing pain of metal fresh from a Bunsen burner. “Are you trying to brand me?”

Tony: “But did I?” he shot back, his gaze intense.

The absence of pain registered a second later. Joe looked at his palm—no redness, no blistering. He frowned, staring at the knife on the polished concrete. Cautiously, he bent and picked it up. The metal was cool. Room-temperature cool, as if it had not suspended in a fifteen-hundred-degree blue flame.

Joe: “Tony,” he said slowly, hefting the unnaturally light blade. “Why is this not hot?”

Tony: “That’s what I want to know. And, it’s not just that. I tried to get a sample. A simple metal shaving for spectrometry. My diamond-tipped grinder snapped. The industrial laser cutter overheated and fried its own lens. I put it in the hydraulic press—the one we use to compact evidence for disposal. Set it to fifty tons of pressure. The press’s piston housing cracked. The knife didn’t have a scratch. Not a scuff.”

He leaned forward, his eyes wide.

Tony: “So, I think, okay, it’s got some kind of insane, permanent reinforcement enchantment. The kind of thing you’d find on a national treasure. I run the full aetheric battery: resonance scans, spectral weft analysis, decay-rate measurement.” He paused for dramatic effect, the silence thick. “Nothing. Null. There is zero aetheric signature in this object. It is magically inert. But physically… it laughs at physics.”

Tony swallowed hard, the sound audible in the quiet lab. He looked from Joe to Mike to Dan, his expression one of scientific awe bordering on terror.

Tony: “Joe, do you understand what this means? An object of impervious durability with no enchantment is impossible. There is only one thing in this world that has these properties like this.”

Joe took a slight step back, the weight of Tony’s implication beginning to dawn, though he couldn’t yet grasp its full shape.

Joe: “I’m not following, Tony. Spell it out.”

Tony: “This thing,” he hissed, snatching the knife back from Joe’s hand and holding it up as if it were a sacred—or profane—relic. “Is an arcane artifact from the Mythic Era. There are only five cataloged, verified artifacts from that age in existence. This would be the sixth.”

The words landed in the sterile room like a detonation. Joe, Mike, and Dan stood frozen. The Mythic Era wasn’t history; it was pre-history, a semi-mythical time before structured magic, before aether theory, an age of legends and world-shaping beings. Artifacts from that time were the stuff of university lectures and wild conspiracy theories. They were said to operate on principles that defied modern magical understanding, possessing powers that made even the most powerful contemporary enchantments look like child’s play. Three of the five known ones were locked in maximum-security vaults under the eyes of governments. One was lost in the Warring States and the other still wanders

Joe stared at the unassuming switchblade in Tony’s trembling hand. It looked crude, almost cheap. The idea that it belonged in the same category as the fabled Eye of Argon or the Sky Heart felt absurd. Yet, Tony’s track record was impeccable. His methodology was his religion. And the conviction in his voice wasn’t excitement—it was dread.

Joe: “You’re absolutely sure about this?” Striker asked, his own voice hushed.

Tony: “Yes,” he affirmed, his tone leaving no room for doubt. “An object with this level of innate, non-magical durability cannot exist under our understanding of metallurgy or material science. If it were enchanted, it would scream with aetheric resonance. The fact that it is both invulnerable and silent… there’s only one precedent. The myths say the people of the Mythic Era wielded forces that weren’t aether. That they shaped reality with principles we’ve forgotten or can no longer perceive. This… this thing… is a fossil from that forgotten age.”

Mike moved around Joe, coming to stand at his right shoulder. He crossed his arms, his gaze shifting from the blade to Joe’s face, his expression a blend of skepticism and dawning understanding.

Mike: “An artifact from the Mythic Era. Well, that explains the cloak-and-dagger routine,” he said, nodding toward the still-locked lab door.

Tony: “Exactly,” he replied, his voice low. He set the knife down carefully on a rubber mat, as if it might detonate. “If the government—the real government, the black-budget archivists, not our local precinct—gets a whisper of this, they’ll descend with a containment team so fast it’ll make your head spin. It’ll vanish into a deep-storage vault for ‘study,’ which usually means it'll never be seen again. That’s why Murdock can’t know. Not yet. I figured… whatever this is, it’s tied to your case.”

Joe: “Thanks, Tony,” he said, a note of genuine gratitude in his voice. “Reliable as always.”

Mike turned fully to Joe, the pieces clicking into a new and disturbing configuration.

Mike: “So, lost magic from the Mythic Era. That just went from ‘unlikely’ to ‘tangible evidence on the table.’ A deadly curse from that era doesn’t seem so far-fetched anymore.”

Joe let out a long, weary sigh, the sound heavy with the weight of escalating strangeness.

Joe: “It seems that way. Tony, can you tell what this thing actually does? Its function?”

Tony shook his head, a gesture of helpless frustration.

Tony: “I have no idea. That’s the thing with confirmed Mythic Era artifacts—their purposes are rarely obvious. They’re discovered through accidental activation, or decades of fraught experimentation. Even the recorded ones… their full capabilities are mostly speculation. They don’t come with manuals.”

Joe: “Well, be careful with it,” he warned, his eyes fixed on the innocuous-looking blade. “My working theory is hardening. I think this might be the thing that placed a deadly curse on Rob Anvil.”

A visible shudder ran through Tony. He quickly took two deliberate steps back, putting more distance between himself and the artifact, the potential lethality of his discovery now horrifically personal.

Mike: “It was found in Mark’s home,” he noted, pulling the thread. “A victim Rob murdered.”

Joe: “The same home,” he continued, his voice grimly methodical, “where Mark’s mother, Esmeralda, was found after she… took her own life. That tragedy is what gave the house its eerie reputation.”

Mike: “Combine that with what John implied to me,” Vahid started, but was immediately cut off.

Dan: “Wait, you talked to him?” he interjected, his eyes wide with surprise. The name ‘John Li’ carried a certain legendary, almost mythical weight within their small circle after the Eld Street fiasco.

Mike: “I’ll tell you about it later,” he said firmly, waving off the question. He refocused. “John indicated a deadly curse requires a strong resentment. Given what we saw with the Slime ritual—where the sacrifice’s emotional state was the catalyst—I suspect you’ve already connected the same dots I have.”

Joe gave a single, grim nod.

Joe: “A mother who loses her only son to a brutal, meaningless murder. If there’s a source of pure, undiluted resentment strong enough to power something like this… that’s it. And she did end her own life. Willingly. Which fits the sacrificial parameter we’ve observed already.”

Dan’s head swiveled between the two senior detectives, his youthful face processing the logic with mounting horror.

Dan: “Wait, are you saying the source of the curse is…”

Joe: “Esmeralda,” he stated flatly, the name dropping like a stone. “The guess is that when she committed suicide, she didn’t just die normally. She used this knife—this Mythic Era artifact—to perform a ritual. She turned her own death, her bottomless resentment, into a curse. A time-delayed poison she left for her son’s killer.”

Dan: “But she died years ago,” he protested, grappling with the timeline. “Rob only died a few months back.”

Joe shook his head, his mind racing through the implications.

Joe: “I was told deadly curses don’t have an obvious time limit—only triggers. Rob could have been carrying this curse like a seed in his chest for years. It just needed the right conditions to sprout.” He paused, the scene in the interrogation room flashing in his mind—Rob’s defiant confidence crumbling into pleading, then terror. “My guess? The trigger was when he said Mark’s name during our final interrogation. That’s what finally activated it.”

Mike: “So now we know how Rob died,” he concluded, his tone aiming for finality. “We have the method—a Mythic Era curse—and a probable perpetrator and motive—Esmeralda’s vengeful suicide. We can close the case.”

Joe: “Hmm, I don’t know about that,” Joe murmured, his eyes still fixed on the knife, his mind turning the facts like a lockpick searching for a click.

Mike: “Come on, Joe,” Mike complained, the exhaustion clear in his voice. “What more do you need? It fits.”

Joe: “A few things don’t sit right,” he said, holding up a finger. “First, if you’re killing yourself as part of a ritual curse involving a knife, logic says you’d use the knife. Esmeralda hanged herself. Second…” He gestured at the switchblade. “An artifact from the legendary Mythic Era… is a switchblade? It seems oddly… modern.”

Tony: “The prevailing theory is that the peoples of the Mythic Era were technologically and magically advanced far beyond our current understanding,” he interjected, though he sounded less like he was defending the idea and more like he was quoting a textbook. “Their ‘artifacts’ might not look like what we expect. A tool is a tool.”

Mike: “And maybe she didn’t need to die by the blade,” he offered, grasping for coherence. “Using a knife on yourself… there’s room for hesitation, for a failed attempt. A noose is more definitive. Maybe the ritual only required her blood on the artifact. Sacrificial blood. Because when we found it, there was a small amount of dried blood on the blade.”

Joe’s head snapped up.

Joe: “Right. Tony, did you run the blood?”

Tony: “I did a standard DNA profile,” Tony said. “It’s not in any of our databases—I have no idea who it belonged to.”

Joe: “What about the blood divination I asked you to do?”

Tony stared at him, his professional composure cracking into pure disbelief.

Tony: “You were serious about that? I thought you were just… being sarcastic.”

Joe: “Of course I was serious. The forensic team has used blood divination before on the Butcher on the River case. It gave us a district.”

Tony: “Joe, that was with fresh blood, less than forty-eight hours old!” he explained, exasperated. “This blood is dried, degraded, and who knows how old—years, at least. Do you even understand the mechanics?”

Joe: “No,” Joe admitted bluntly. “But I know it can locate a person from their blood. We don’t have a name in a database, but if the divination could point us to a street, a building… that’s a lead. You know my motto.”

Tony groaned, pinching the bridge of his nose. Seeing the stubborn, unwavering look on Joe’s face, he realized argument was futile. Sometimes, a demonstration was the only language Striker understood.

Tony: “Fine. You want to see? I’ll show you.”

With the air of a man performing a futile but necessary experiment, Tony walked to a climate-controlled fridge. He retrieved a small petri dish containing a few dark, flaky fragments—the carefully scraped residue from the blade. He then moved to a complex apparatus that resembled a cross between a centrifuge and an alembic. Inserting the flakes, he activated the machine. It whirred and hummed, a faint lavender light pulsing within its crystal chambers for several seconds before depositing a single, plain white candle onto a tray.

Mike, having seen this ritual before, let out a quiet sigh of profound weariness. He walked to lean against the locked lab door, arms crossed, his posture the very picture of disapproving patience. He knew what was coming.

Dan, however, was fascinated. He edged closer, peering over Joe’s shoulder as Tony carried the candle to a cleared metal table. With quick movements, Tony drew a complex arcane circle in blue chalk, inscribing sigils of seeking and connection at its cardinal points. He placed the candle in the exact center.

Tony: “This,” the forensic officer announced, a hint of theatrical frustration in his voice, “is a blood divination ritual. Or, more accurately, an attempt at one with a sub-optimal sample.” He gestured toward the candle and uttered a short, guttural phrase.

The candle wick sputtered to life with a weak, yellowish flame. The candle itself trembled, then levitated an inch off the table. It rotated slowly, uncertainly, like a lost compass. The flame guttered, burning erratically for a few seconds before snuffing out completely. The candle dropped, landing with a soft tap and rolling a short distance before coming to a stop, pointing roughly in Joe’s direction.

They all stared at it.

Joe: “Okay…” he said slowly, after the anticlimax had settled. “So… do we know where the person is?”

Tony gestured broadly at the fallen candle.

Tony: “Somewhere in that direction,” he said flatly, pointing the same way the candle was aimed—essentially, right at Joe.

Joe: “That’s it?” he asked, disappointment and skepticism warring in his voice. “I thought it would be… more specific. A neighborhood, a street number.”

Tony: “That’s it,” he affirmed, his earlier frustration boiling over into blunt exposition. “This is what I was trying to explain. Blood divination isn’t some precise tracking spell. It points. That’s all. It gives you a general direction, with no sense of distance. For the Butcher case, we had a fresh sample from a living victim, and we still had to perform the ritual from three different locations to triangulate a three-block radius. The blood had a strong, active aetheric link to its source.”

He picked up the inert candle, his expression severe.

Tony: “Use blood older than a few days, and the link degrades. The ritual gets… confused. It starts seeking the strongest residual emotional or familial connection instead of the original owner. With something as old as this,” he gestured to the petri dish, “the energy is so faint it just picks up on random ambient aetheric noise. It points anywhere. Unless, the person whose blood this belongs to is standing in this room.”

To demonstrate, Tony swiftly reset the chalk circle and performed the ritual again. The candle lifted, spun weakly, and dropped. It pointed at Joe. Tony frowned. He tried again, more deliberately. The candle pointed at Joe. A third time, with a muttered adjustment to the seeking sigils. Joe. A fourth, after physically shifting the table to a different part of the room. The candle lifted, seemed to hesitate, then adjusted its fall to land pointing stubbornly, unmistakably, at Joe Striker.

The repeated, unwavering result killed Tony’s lecture dead. The frustrated specialist vanished, replaced by a forensics expert staring at an impossible data point.

Mike uncrossed his arms, letting them fall to his sides as he pushed off from the door. His gaze locked onto Joe, sharp and probing. Dan, standing behind Joe, drew in a quick breath, his eyes wide with a dawning, bewildered shock.

A heavy silence blanketed the lab, broken only by the hum of equipment.

Tony cleared his throat, the sound awkward in the stillness.

Tony: “Um… you’re absolutely sure that wasn’t your blood you gave me? Not a nick from when you handled it?”

Joe: “Positive,” he said, his own voice unusually quiet. He looked at his hands, then back at the knife. “I was gloved. The blood was already dried when we found it.”

Tony: “Then…” Tony trailed off, his scientific mind grappling with the implication. “Whoever this blood belonged to… they have, or had, an extraordinarily strong aetheric or emotional connection to you, Joe. A bond potent enough to override years of decay, to supersede every other possible signal in a city of millions. The ritual isn’t finding its original source anymore. It’s finding the strongest and closest remaining link to that source. And that link… is you.”

The unspoken question hung in the sterile air, cold and unsettling. Everyone in the room looked from the artifact to Joe Striker, their faces a mix of confusion, suspicion, and a slowly growing unease. What connection could Joe possibly have to a vengeful mother who died years ago? And what did that mean for the curse that had killed a gang lord, and for the detective who seemed to be standing at its epicenter?

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