(So, what do the magician's involved in the sawing contest do when not sawing women in half, well they investigate supernatural crimes and incursions).
Prologue: The Coldest Case
The room was silent, sterile, and cold, the air tasting of antiseptic and refrigerated death. It was a private morgue in a discreet corner of London, one of the many facilities the Order maintained for occasions when a death was too strange for public scrutiny.
On the central stainless-steel slab, beneath a harsh, shadowless light, lay the body of a man named Thomas Blythe. He couldn't have been more than twenty-two. He had the lean, wiry build of a young man who had spent his life on his feet, and his hands, though calloused from his work at the theme park, had begun to soften in recent months of unemployment.
His face, in the peaceful repose of death, was unremarkable, save for a faint, almost childlike expression of bewildered surprise.
Felix Moreau, a vibrant splash of emerald green against the sterile white, was already at work, his sleek device projecting a shimmering, chaotic hologram of the man’s bio-etheric field. The door slid open with a soft hiss, and Alistair Graves entered. Felix looked up, expecting the usual sharp, commanding presence, but stopped short.
Alistair looked… diminished. The tailored charcoal suit was immaculate, the movements as precise as ever, but his usual aura of effortless superiority was gone, replaced by a quiet, consuming glumness.
“Staff problems?” Alistair asked, his voice flat as he approached the slab, his eyes barely glancing at Felix.
Felix, momentarily thrown, defaulted to his own recent troubles. “You could say that. I’m on my lonesome again. Had to let Dr. Thorne go.” He waited for the inevitable witty retort, the dry comment about his management style.
It never came. Alistair simply nodded. “A pity.”
The lack of his usual braggadocio was more alarming than any open hostility. This was not the Alistair who would normally relish the opportunity for a bit of sport at Felix's expense.
Felix deactivated the hologram, his expression turning from frustration to genuine concern. “Speaking of which… everything alright with you? You seem… off.”
“I’m fine,” Alistair said, the lie as crisp and tailored as his suit. He was not fine. He was haunted by the memory of a quiet cottage in the Cotswolds and a kind old woman who no longer knew his name. “Just a… long month.”
Felix knew better than to push. He nodded, reactivating the display and returning his attention to the task at hand. “Well, this poor lad had a long month too. Right up until the end.” He magnified the hologram. “The physical trauma from the fall is what killed him. But this… this happened after. The bio-etheric tearing is extreme, Alistair. The wounds haven’t even tried to heal themselves with residual energy.”
“In a standard soul contract, the soul is aware of the bargain. There is regret, but acceptance,” Alistair explained, placing a gloved hand just above the dead man’s chest. He closed his eyes, feeling the psychic scream of a soul that had been tricked, not merely collected. “This is different. This soul fought back because it didn’t understand the terms of its own damnation. It’s the work of a broker who deals in deceptive clauses and fine print.”
“A soul contract?” Felix countered, swiping through historical data on his device. “But that’s impossible. The Inter-Planar Accords outlawed the entire practice centuries ago. It’s a relic of a darker age.”
“Precisely,” Alistair agreed. “Which is why a fresh signature on a forbidden document has the Vellum’s undivided attention. Someone has resurrected a dead art, and now they are collecting on their investment.” He removed his hand from the body.
“The only reason we’re looking at Mr. Blythe is because he was the great-nephew of Lord Harrington. His Lordship, despite the family estrangement, likes to keep tabs on his bloodline. When he heard of the ‘accidental’ death, he insisted on a second, private autopsy here in London.”
He picked up a tablet displaying the pathologist’s report dated 7th October. “His Lordship’s pathologist, a Dr. Emory, is a member of a rather exclusive forensic pathology WhatsApp group. He noticed these post-mortem cellular changes—our soul-tear—and posted a query, asking if anyone had seen anything similar. As I’m sure you can guess, our own dear Victor is also a member of that group. He recognized the signature, alerted the Order, and the Vellum summoned us.”
The scope of their mission was now clear. It wasn’t just a breach of an ancient accord; it was an active conspiracy operating in the modern world, one that had only been discovered through a combination of aristocratic privilege and digital gossip.
“Our mission is no longer about a simple anomaly,” Alistair said, his voice cold as the morgue slab. “It’s about an active broker who has found a way to make forbidden deals. The Vellum gave us the location of the accident. We go there. We investigate his life. We find the deal he made, and the one who offered it.”
He glanced at the clock on the wall. It was just past eleven. “The drive to Havenwood is a few hours. We’ll get there before dawn.”
Felix’s face brightened considerably. “Excellent. We should make it in time for a proper full English at a greasy spoon. I find the residual fat in the air adds a certain… flavour to the initial site analysis.”
An hour later, two cars sliced through the crisp, early October night, leaving the glow of London behind as they joined the river of headlights flowing west on the M4 motorway towards the sleeping towns of Somerset.
The first was a growl. A 1970s Jaguar XJ, its body a slash of immaculate black, owned the road. Its engine was a low, predatory rumble, hinting at the ferocious roar it could unleash at speed. Inside, Alistair drove with an effortless, focused economy of motion, while the lingering sound of Queen's Greatest Hits was playing on a tape deck.
The second was a whisper. A sleek, silver teardrop of a car, more a drop of liquid mercury than a vehicle, glided through the darkness. Its electric engine made no sound. At the helm, Felix’s fingers danced across a holographic interface, his mind already sifting through data, searching for the first threads of the mystery that awaited them in the crumbling seaside town of Havenwood.