Rebelling Against the Dominion of Death (3)

San Francisco, Morgue, Evening of Day After Kramer’s First Death

“We lost some time there. Might need to hurry up.”

“We also lost an interviewee,” Lumina noted.

As the adrenaline rush from the attempt on her life by the corrupted Turner Kramer ceased, the hits Lumina had taken from the creature made themselves known to Lumina, particularly the hit to her shoulder. She was going to have a nice bruise there in the morning. Corinth certainly had it worse though.

Back to the task at hand. Approaching Gail Iris’s corpse again, Lumina took a sample of incense from her bag, then chanted the incantation and performed the appropriate gestures for Prestidigitation to ignite the incense, after which she chanted a different incantation and performed different gestures to cast Speak with Dead. Thankfully, both were fairly quick to cast spells, and within a few moments, Gail sat up and looked in Lumina’s general direction through sightless eyes. The corpse said nothing.

Taking a deep breath, Lumina began the preamble she had been thinking about on the way there. “I am sorry to disturb your rest, Gail, but people are suffering at the hands of an assailant that we do not know, and we think you can help us identify the nature of this threat. I will ask you some questions, and then I will leave you in peace.

“I told him they would do it, but he wouldn’t listen to me!” the corpse rasped.

“I’m listening to you,” Lumina reassured her as she struggled to suppress her unease with the uncanny situation.

“No one listened to me, they all think I am crazy,” Gail moaned.

“I don’t,” Lumina again assured her, “Now, did you see a man with the head and wings of a moth before you were shot?”

“He had red eyes, and he was in front of the school! He should have listened to me!”

Lumina glanced at Corinth. This was something. Question two. “Who shot you?”

“I did,” Gail rattled.

That confirmed the official report that Gail’s death was a suicide. Question three. “Why did you shoot yourself?”

“I had too!”

Lumina was fast running out of questions. How could the mothman force Gail to kill herself? Or did he even do so? “Who made you shoot yourself?”

“The man in the black suit, he was coming for me, and nobody would listen to me!” Gail cried.

Lumina glanced at Corinth again. So there was somebody else wrapped in all of this too? Last question. “Who is the man in the black suit?”

Gail appeared confused by the question, “Nobody wears a suit like that in this heat. It's too hot for that suit. Aren’t you listening to me?” Gail’s voice grew louder and angrier as she continued, “Why would anyone wear a suit like that when it's this hot?! You aren’t listening to me, and now too late, now I’ve been shot, just like I told him would happen! Nobody listens to me, they think I’m crazy, and now you think I’m crazy! You should have listened to me! Now it’s too late! Why aren’t you listening to me?!”

Lumina cut off the spell as Gail became aggressive. As she did so, Gail’s voice and motions ceased, and the corpse collapsed back onto the gurney.

Lumina shuddered, closed her eyes, and pinched her temples as she processed her conversation with Gail. She had confirmed that the Mothman was indeed involved in this mess, and she also mentioned the presence of another man, a man in a black suit, that had reportedly been approaching Gail that had somehow prompted her to shoot herself repeatedly. Apparently there had been something very strange about the man, but Lumina didn’t understand how a black suit in and of itself was that unusual. Men wore formal black suits in a lot of industries. Presumably Gail didn’t mistake this man for a school administrator or a father in one of those industries coming to pick his kid up. Surely there had to be something else.

Then Lumina recalled seeing a man in a black suit featuring prominently in a vision The End Rite had induced. Could Gail have seen that man?

Time was ticking, and Lumina had one more interview to do. Perhaps Olivia had seen this other man as well?

Unfortunately, none of the bodies on the gurneys matched Olivia’s description, so Lumina and Corinth had to use precious minutes searching through the pullout body drawers along the back wall (Lumina was careful not to open the drawer Turner had exploded in) until Corinth found the corpse of a young auburn haired girl who looked like she had been impaled by a great number of needles. Lumina immediately got to work pulling out another sample of incense and repeating the spells she had used to initiate a conversation with Gail.

Like Gail had, Olivia sat up as the Speak with Dead spell went into effect. “What do you want from me?” the girl whimpered.

Lumina launched into mostly the same preamble she had used to initiate her other conversation. “I am sorry to disturb your rest, Olivia, but people are suffering at the hands of an assailant that we do not know, and we think you can help us identify the nature of this threat. I will ask you some questions, and then I will leave you in peace.”

“The needles,” Olivia moaned, “They’re everywhere.”

“Did you see a man with the head of and wings of a moth before you were attacked?” Lumina inquired.

Olivia nodded, but said nothing.

Question two. “Did that man attack you?”

“He flew at me, his eyes glowing so red, and he screamed at me, but it was the man who came from behind me that hurt me with the needles.”

Lumina paused. Another man again. “Why did the man hurt you with the needles?” she asked gently.

“He told me not to move, and I tried to get away, to get to the trees,”

“Why were you going to the trees?”

Olivia froze. “I-I saw a swamp, from 104 years ago, and I saw men screaming in a crypt, and I felt it calling to me…”

As Olivia trailed off, Lumina racked her mind for the last question. “What do you know of your ancestor that disappeared in a Florida swamp 104 years ago?”

“I don’t know anything! I don’t know why this happened to me! I just want to be left alone!” Olivia broke into sobs that did not relent. When she did not desist, Lumina knew she had gotten all she could. With a sigh, Lumina broke off the spell, and Olivia got to return to her eternal rest.

Sufficiently rattled for one night, Lumina helped Corinth close the drawer that held Olivia. “Let’s get out of here,” she intoned. Corinth wordlessly led her out of the room.

Thankfully, nobody gave them too much trouble as the Templars made their way back through the hospital. Lumina was feeling pretty done with the day as they got into their sporty red Nissan Maxima. “I’m feeling a shower right now,” Lumina groaned as Corinth started the car. He seemed to be in agreement as they pulled out onto the streets.