And then the door closed in front of me. Its image began to distort and fade away in front of my eyes. But before it completely disappeared, I noticed something on its dual colored surface--a keyhole.

  I blinked for a second and I was back in Oswald's house, straddling his corpse. I swallowed hard before moving off the dead man.

  Hopper was at the sink, busy trying to wash the blood off his half sliced shirt. He noticed me when I rose to my feet. “I think I'll need to borrow one of his shirts,” he said and then he asked me what I had just done to the man.

  While he rummaged through Oswald's closet, I gave him a brief rundown of what I had done and what I had seen as I waited in the hallway outside Oswald's bedroom. When Hopper returned, tucking in his fresh shirt, I asked him, “So does any of it ring any bells?”

  “Not in the slightest. I've never heard of an organization named the Scarlet Society.”

  “And what about the elixirs that can put you in a close relationship with these weird entities?” I asked.

  “Those do exist.” He nodded. “What you described sounds like a protogod. They are fragments of real God like beings that are capable of forming close binding vows with mortals. They usually need mortals for a specific task. And thus they enter into a symbiotic relationship with them.”

  “Power in exchange of…whatever the protogod asks for?” I asked.

  He nodded again.

  “I believe you'll dig up some information on the Scarlet Society now?” I said.

  “Apparently, yes. But it's going to be crafty, I can tell.” He put on his jacket and his top hat. “Based on what you've told me, the Scarlet Society seems to be very deliberate and slow on whom they recruit. If they are that slow and secretive, it means there are going to be less clues to find out about them. But Oswald gave us a place to begin at least.”

  Hopper wrote down a brief note describing the situation at hand and passed it over to one of the two watchmen at the main gate of Werner Housing. “Take this to a nearby police station and tell them that General Hopper has asked for assistance. Also, tell them to bring along a medical examiner,” he said.

  After the guard hurried away, I asked Hopper, “What about me? Is my name going to come up?”

  “Depends. Do you want it to come up?” he asked.

  I looked at him, a bit surprised by his leniency. He read my expression and answered me before I could voice my thoughts.

  “Honestly, this case was none of your business in the first place,” he said. “You helped me deal with it, I appreciate it. But involving you officially would only create more complications for me while providing evidence in the court regarding why I had to kill him.”

  “Wait, but you didn't–”

  He gave me a knowing look. I nodded, finally understanding his implication. “So, you were onto Oswald. He attacked you. A fight broke out and you killed him in self defense. That's the story?”

  “Yes,” he said. “It's less complicated that way.”

  “What about the guards that saw me entering with you?” I asked.

  He waved the pouch of ederanth powder.

  I nodded again. “So it's all sorted.”

  “No, it's still very complicated,” he said. “The serial murder investigation might've ended here but the whole Scarlet Society matter has opened a new door. The possibility of this organization carrying out more crimes for the sake of understanding ‘Him’ is very real now. The internal police is certainly going to be busy for a while with this.”

  I nervously rubbed the back of my neck, “Also, you didn't really see any of the things I told you about Oswald yourself. How are you going to prove those things actually are true?”

  “I'll handle it, don't worry.” Hopper shrugged. “Your work here is done. But thanks for helping me out with this investigation.”

  “I would like to ask something more if you don't mind,” I said.

  “Yes?”

  “Can you tell Sydny Canning about what I did? I mean, just tell him that I was the one who personally killed Oswald.” I nervously rubbed the back of my neck. “And if one of his friends has something similar that needs to be taken care of then…he can refer me to them.”

  Hopper’s face turned thoughtful and he remained silent for several seconds. “If Sydny Canning does refer you to someone else for a matter like this one it would mean, you'll be running as a vigilante.”

  “No!” I waved my hands frantically. “It doesn't just have to be something related to an unsolved murder. It can also involve a job that requires some special talents.”

  “What if it involves more unsolved murders?” Hopper folded his arms across his chest. “This case with Oswald was an exception, Miss Grimly. If something similar shows up you are just asking me to turn a blind eye to things. I know you and your friends have a good reason to not trust the law enforcement but the reason I decided to keep living as Hopper was to change the way things are done in IP. What are we supposed to do if someone else just takes the law in their own hands and makes us look like fools? And not to mention, the real Hopper has already left a bad impression on the minds of civilians.”

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  He was right. I was basically asking him and the rest of Internal Police to stand and watch while I played around with high profile crimes just for fun. “If something like this does show up, you'll be the first one I'll inform about it before taking any action. I promise.”

  “Alright,” Hopper said after a little hesitance. “Then I can act selectively blind towards other things you get involved in. You can rest assured that I'll let Sydny Canning know about your work in this case.”

  And with that I left Oswald's home. On the tram ride back to the Burning Bend I kept looking down at my hands. I had just killed someone.

  For once, I didn't regret it. I'd put an end to a serial murderer's rampage throughout the province.

  Yet a part of me felt that if only had Oswald been born in a different house with better parents, maybe things would've turned out differently for him. But in that case, he wouldn't even be the same child that grew up to be Oswald. He would just be someone else.

  I didn't ponder over that thought for too long. Another thought was already pushing its way in my head. The liberation ritual. According to Elsa’s notes, an abyss can’t be extracted from a live creature. But she hadn’t specified what the liberation ritual might extract instead. I don’t know why she had left that particular bit of information out of her entries. But it was not a secret anymore that if I targeted a living human being in the ritual next time, I’d end up separating the body from the soul.

  And using the ritual on a living Oswald had taken me to that part of reality where souls passed onto the other side. I remembered the door that stood at the passage. I remembered the keyhole on its surface.

  Even if the obsidian key was the one that could unlock the door, it still meant that I would have to use the liberation ritual on a live person or maybe an animal in order to access the door. That thought alone made me wary of whoever it was that wanted the key delivered to me. And whatever it was that lay on the other side of the door.

  ****

  I arrived back home by afternoon. Smokewell was still lounging on the couch. "So, how was shopping?" she asked.

  "Good."

  "Show me."

  I showed her the crow-feather quill and the goatskin parchment. I also showed her the curse channeling cards. She examined each item before raising an eyebrow at the cards. "Seems like you had a productive day," she said.

  "I think I did." I nodded, keeping my face nonchalant.

  "Good," she said again. She stood up on all fours and stretched her back before hopping up on the mantle above the fireplace. "Now that we have a place of our own and since Miss Housemate isn't home right now, it's a good time to catch up."

  Smokewell's statement almost made my mask of calmness slip off my face. The question itself was quite simple and innocent. But for some reason I got a wary feeling from the conversation that lay ahead of me. "Sure," I said and dragged an armchair close to the fireplace. "What's this about?"

  "About the new skill that you have put on display in these past few days." The cat licked her paw. "The liberation ritual."

  There it was. That was the reason why I had got that wary feeling. Yet, I wouldn't say I was caught completely off guard. This conversation was bound to happen, since old Elsa had prepared and studied the ritual secretly and without Lily or Smokewell's knowledge. "Yes, I was wondering when you'd ask me about it," I said. I was fairly prepared for whatever the cat was about to throw at me. But I would be lying if I wasn't a little nervous.

  "Why didn't you tell me that you were working on something like that?" Smokewell said.

  "There didn't seem to be a right time for it," I said. "At least not in the past couple of months. What with the Inquisition hot on our heels and there not being a safe haven for us to hide in."

  The cat nodded. "Where did you learn the ritual from?"

  I shook my head. "I created most of it myself," I said. "Based off of other rituals from the Dark Arcana."

  "Which rituals exactly?" Smokewell asked.

  "Reverse necromancy was one of them," I said, parroting off what I'd read in old Elsa's journal.

  "The principle of soul chaining?" Smokewell suggested.

  I nodded in agreement. "Where necromancy mostly involves reanimating a dead corpse after separating its soul. Reverse necromancy involves separating and tethering the soul to the mortal realm temporarily."

  "But soul chaining only works if you are drawing power from a soul. A mortal soul gets connected to the spirit realm the moment it leaves the mortal body." The cat's eyes were glinting with interest as she talked. "Making them act subservient towards you can't be carried out simply by soul chaining."

  "That's why I narrowed my focus down to the abyss instead of the entire soul," I said. "The abyss stays behind while the core of the soul gets summoned to the spirit realm after death. The abyss is also sentient enough to take orders. But its spiritual skeleton is more flexible than the core of the soul," I said. "Because of that flexible nature, I can bind the abyss to myself and even make fully formed abyssal beings pass through walls and doors and command them to solidify themselves at will. That's also the reason why some of them can travel at really high speeds."

  Smokewell's face was more thoughtful than impressed. "But since they are more subservient and only mildly intelligent, they do seem to fumble your orders," she said.

  "That's a hurdle I intend to cross over the course of my studies," I said. "I think the fault lies in the way I communicate my orders with them."

  "The problem can be solved quite easily if you establish some specific spells for basic orders," Smokewell said.

  I paused before saying, “How do you suggest I do that?” I asked.

  "That mark on your palm." She pointed at my hand. "Modify it just enough to incorporate some spells in them. Note it down in your hexonomicon under ‘liberation ritual’. You'll be able to cast specific orders then. Did you forget what I taught you?"

  I raised an eyebrow. "Writing down the ritual...decreases its chances of failure," I said slowly, feeling dumber as the realization settled upon me. The solution to that problem sounded simple when Smokewell pointed it out like that. I tried not to look too embarrassed.

  "Don't forget the axiom of relevance," Smokewell said. "If the method of ritual isn’t relevant to the intended result, the ritual would fail. That's why you can't just write whatever gibberish you want in your hexonomicon and call it a ritual."

  I nodded. "Thank you, madam," I said with a faint smile. "You've really solved a problem that I probably would've spent hours on."

  Surprisingly, instead of reveling in pride Smokewell just shrugged. "I've said it before and I'll say it again, clear thinking is a witch's strongest weapon. Your malice is made of knowledge, Elsa. That makes you susceptible to get lost in the trivialities of witchcraft. I won't deny that it makes you understand and process information much faster. But remember that the best way to enter a house isn't always opening a portal in the wall. Sometimes, you can simply try the door."

  My smile got wider. "I'll remember that."