“Back to square one it seems.” Damian said as he stared down at the corpse of the innkeeper.

  Catherine just rolled her eyes at him and went back to examining the corpse, “Fine, you were right ya’ bloody bastard. Happy now? No fang marks on the neck, means the beast’s partner adds them later. I also made a small cut on his finger; there is no blood in the body.”

  Damian knelt down to investigate alongside her. He took a sniff and noticed a smell like burnt metal with a copper tinge. “I think they burned the blood in his veins.”

  “The feck would they do tha’ for. What even could burn blood inside someone’s body?”

  “Your guess is as good as mine. He was still alive when we arrived. Was he able to say anything?”

  Catherine nodded, though she wrinkled her brows in confusion, “Yeah, I’m not sure if he was speaking gibberish due to pain or if he was trying to name his attacker. The only thing he managed to say was ‘haschnelguis’. Any idea what he could have meant?”

  Damian was just as confused as her. The hell is a haschnelguis? He didn’t know anything that had a name similar to that. He stared at the innkeeper trying to puzzle it out. The innkeeper is a first-generation immigrant from Germany; it could be some kind of German creature but which one. None of the creatures Damian new of from German folk lore could do this. While that list wasn’t large and mostly due to Hans telling him about…….

  Damian had a sudden thought. He remembered his first hunt with Bronze, where she killed a snallygaster. If he remembered correctly, the stories of snallygasters were created when German immigrants moved to Maryland. It started as a mispronunciation of its origin creature, a Schneller Geist or quick ghost. Could that have been what the innkeeper had been trying to say? Then what about the ‘ha’ part.

  Catherine raised a brow, “What are you thinking?”

  “I think he was trying to tell us that what attacked him was a Schneller Geist and the ‘ha’ at the start was a name for its accomplice.” Damian replied.

  “Could a Schneller Geist do this to a person?”

  “Doubtful, if I had to guess the Schneller Geist was responsible for getting its partner into their victim’s location and possessing them so they couldn’t move. The partner likely preformed some kind of ritual to kill the incapacitated victim. Help me look around.”

  The duo quickly got up and began to look around. The kitchen was rather large and open in the middle where the innkeeper’s body lay. If there was going to be anything to find it was going to be along the edges. Taking a quick sweep of the room and had a sudden thought, he took a step back outside and took a look at the rising sun. Noting the direction, he went back into the kitchen and considered. Most rituals require something to be put in the cardinal directions to either create a sacred container or invoke the elements. He quickly narrowed his search to the cardinal directions, which just so happened to be in the corners of the room. He started with the closest corner, the one in the direction of north.

  In the corner was a large beehive oven where the kitchen staff would prepare meats, pie, and bread. The stench of sulfur thickened the closer he came to the fire pit in its center. Damian started to dig through the cooling coals of the fire and paused when he found something strange. It looked like a simple brick of charcoal but when his hand brushed over it there was a strange texture to it. He grabbed it and brought it close to his face for inspection. He could barely make out some weird patterns in the briquet but they were rather small. He took the jeweler’s loupe he used when etching runes and wore them.

  With the magnification the loupe provided he could finally make out the patterns on the briquet. They were veins, carved into whatever the object had been before being burnt. Veins and branching capillaries littered the surface of the object and seemed to absorb any and all light. Setting the weird item down Damian quickly searched the other corners and found other objects, a green and black candle burned nearly to nothing in the eastern corner. An obsidian shard set up in such a way that it reflected the corpse of the innkeeper at the western corner. Lastly a set of chains dripping in blood in the southern corner. Each item was hidden rather haphazardly, suggesting either they would be taken away when the ritual was done, or this specific one was done in a hurry.

  “We have ourselves a budding necromancer it would seem.” Catherine said as she looked over the items Damian found.

  “Yeah, too bad we couldn’t catch that damn grave robber, he would have likely been able to tell us more. While this ritual was done in a hurry, it is set up by someone who has had a lot of practice, probably bought a decent number of bodies for practice.” Damian said with annoyance.

  This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

  All of a sudden, the door leading to the inn opened and in strode in a pissed off woman on a mission, “Johan you bastard, I was waiting all night for you to….to…”

  She let out a scream of anguish and rushed to the body. She crashed atop it and began to weep.

  Catherine turned to Damian and said, “Go get Father Sullivan to call the undertaker, I’ll see to her.”

  Damian nodded and left the inn. He took off towards the church at just shy of a sprint. It didn’t take him long to find himself in front of the doors of the church. When he tried them, they were locked so he began to pound on the door calling for the priest. It was a bleary-eyed Father Sullivan who answered the door.

  “Exterminator Damian? What is going on?”

  “Another killing I’m afraid, the innkeeper where Catherine and I were staying. I need you to call Hans to come get the body.” Damian answered.

  The priests’ shoulders slumped, “May God preserve us, when will this nightmare end?”

  “Soon Father. We finally have an idea what was behind this and just need to find that damn ring of grave robbers and we should be able to find the son of a bitch responsible.” Damian promised.

  The priest gave him a weary smile, with a weak thread of hope, “I will pray for your success, my son. May God guide your path and Archangel Uriel lend his fiery judgment to assist your fight.”

  There was a subtle white glow that emanated from the priest and settled over Damian. It was warm, approving, and filled with a righteous anger that was poised to strike.

  You have been blessed by an anointed priest recognized by his god. Yahweh has approved for his archangel Uriel to grant you assistance. For the next twenty-four hours you can manifest Uriel’s flaming sword of judgment. In its presence you can tell truth from lies, in addition it enhances your wisdom allowing you to more easily recognize connections between seemingly random pieces of evidence. It is also a big fuck off flaming sword, and as such rather intimidating.

  Damian was stunned for a second before quickly thanking the priest. Father Sullivan just gave him a tired smile, “I hope you can end this quickly, now go on I will meet you at the in with Mr.Kistenmacher.”

  When Damian returned to the inn, he found Catherine and the woman from earlier sitting at the bar. At his approach both women turned, Catherine gave him a slight smile while the woman just gave a miserable nod. He sat down on a barstool nearby, and offered his condolences.

  “I’m sorry for your loss miss. Father Sullivan and Undertaker Hans will be here soon to help with the body.”

  The woman sniffled, “Thank you, young man. I only wish my last interaction with Johan wasn’t a fight. I…I….”

  She broke down into sobs, Catherine doing her best to comfort the poor woman. Damian sat there awkwardly not sure how to help. Conversation didn’t seem appropriate after that so he sat in silence while waiting on the priest. A few guests who stayed at the in came down over the next hour each expressing their condolences and staying to see the innkeeper’s body taken care of. Some left to spread the word to friends of the family.

  The innkeeper was a well-loved man in the community, always first to help and even willing to wave a payment here and there when folks fell on hard times. He volunteered at the fire department and helped out at every soup kitchen the church organized. Father Sullivan and Hans Kistenmacher arrived and went to see to the care of the body. Word spread like wildfire in the Five Points district, neighbors and acquaintances arrived one after another over the course of the next half hour.

  A member of the Teutonic community who served with the innkeeper as a firefighter began to sing. It was a song called Der gut Kamerad.

  Ich hatt' einen Kameraden,

  Einen bessern findst du nit.

  Die Trommel schlug zum Streite,

  Er ging an meiner Seite

  [Im gleichen Schritt und Tritt

  Once the opening stanza was sung, many in the inn joined in. The German community led, and the Irish and African communities hummed along. Those that knew German lent their voices to the song. It only intensified when the body was brought out, wrapped in cloth and transported to Hans’ cart. When the song came to an end, a line was formed and everyone walked by the innkeeper’s wife, offering what comfort they could and promising support in her time of need.

  Damian and Catherine stood off to the side in a melancholic mood. They had seen this scene play out after nearly every death they couldn’t prevent, even if only in the montage memories. They made their way out of the inn, frustrated at being so close to stopping this death but missing it by minutes to half an hour. Damians jaw clenched in anger, if that boy hadn’t protected the dearg due they would have made it back in time.

  They saw Hans standing at the back of his cart, strapping down the body so it wouldn’t fall off the cart mid journey. Hans caught their gaze and waved them over. Once they approached, he gave a sigh, and asked, accent thick and heavy “Another, taken from us to soon. Have you been able to make progress on the investigation?”

  Damian nodded, “Yes we almost have the bastard who did this, just need to follow the lead and it should come to an end.”

  Hans paused in his movements for a split second before turning to the duo. His voice having a strange hesitance as he spoke, “Good, I vish you luck and courage, mein friend. Put an end to this madness.”

  Something about the man’s posture was off to Damian. He was too stiff, his eyes a little shifty. In their talks Hans had always come off a little weird but this was new. He noted it but just gave the man a nod. Whatever was up with the old undertaker it could wait, they had grave robbers to catch and interrogate.

  A shout caught their attention. The three turned and saw a young police officer sprinting towards them. The man panting from exertion was barely able to get out.

  “We caught……Nkosi………...meeting with a………. corpse seller. Both are back at the……precinct.”

  Or just interrogate it seemed. Catherine must have thought the same as she said, “Take us there now. We have questions for the corpse seller.”