《The Lost Deaths》 1: Dead Men Tell the Best Tales A long time ago, a fool told me that humans were only equal in death. A feeble lie. Death wasn¡¯t fair. It wasn¡¯t even random. As I watched my friend Pierre open up the tomb and my fellow orderlies place old Henry¡¯s coffin in the hole, I figured that I should have seen it coming. The man had no rich relatives to pay for more expensive treatments that could have slowed down dementia¡¯s deadly grasp, and neither did he possess a strong constitution that would forestall the creeping hands of age and disease. Father Beno?t simply said his time had come when he gave the final sermon, but the truth was that Henry Nelson couldn¡¯t buy more for himself. He was a poor lonely man who had died a lonely death. Even his final resting place felt like an insult. Portenoire¡¯s graveyard always lacked space for its dead residents, so Pierre had two corpses dug up and then rearranged the plots to fit Henry between them. It was cheaper than paying for yet another extension. ¡°This is a pitiful day, Laurent,¡± Germaine said with a cigarette on her lips. While most alienists looked in a hurry to kill their lungs with that smoke stick, Germaine was older and shrewder than most at the age of sixty-two. She had decided to take her time. ¡°He was with us for nearly twenty years. Can you imagine?¡± ¡°No, I cannot,¡± I replied. I had only been a part-time orderly at the Portenoire Sanitorium for a year. Director Rochard had agreed to house me in exchange for my service and proved most¡­ accommodating about my research. ¡°Well, he couldn¡¯t even remember his own name in the end. Age and insanity do not make a good combination.¡± Germaine shrugged, a look of sadness flashing behind her glasses. ¡°I¡¯ll miss him.¡± I believed as much. Henry had been something of a bizarre pillar for Portenoire¡¯s community as one of the oldest and most well-behaved patients. Most of the staff attended the ceremony. They¡¯d even taken Agn¨¨s out of her cell for the occasion, though she was strapped to a wheelchair to prevent an incident. She had always been strangely fond of the old man. However, I didn¡¯t see anyone from outside the asylum. Henry had no relatives as far as I knew, nor any friends to speak of. If he had any, he had either lost them to time or when he burned down his own bookshop during the Siege of Paris eighteen years ago. Enough people died then that the courts had him institutionalized for the rest of his life after the newborn Third Republic reestablished order in the streets. Henry didn¡¯t leave anything worth fussing over either. His personal belongings mostly included the clothes on his back and that blank book he obsessed over even in the depths of his dementia; a gift which I inherited. ¡°Are you set on taking that memento with you, Laurent?¡± Germaine asked him after we left the graveyard behind us. She eyed the black, featureless book under my arm. ¡°Henry died cradling it.¡± ¡°It would feel disrespectful to throw it away,¡± I replied. ¡°Besides, I need a new notebook.¡± Germaine scoffed. ¡°Most would rather spend a few coins at a bookstore than use a mad arsonist¡¯s last possession.¡± ¡°Most don¡¯t live on a student¡¯s stipend.¡± I¡¯d earned a study grant from the Ministry of Public Instruction by virtue of my merits and results, but the amount was a pittance. ¡°I would rather spend my money on other acquisitions.¡± ¡°Another censored book?¡± Germaine asked, which earned her a scowl from me. She had unfortunately guessed right. ¡°Are you researching that spiritualism nonsense to better debunk it? Or do you truly believe in that quackery?¡± ¡°I do not,¡± I replied with a small smile. ¡°When sufficiently analyzed, magic will stop being quackery. Instead, we¡¯ll call it science.¡± ¡°An elaborate way to say that yes, you do believe.¡± Germaine didn¡¯t hide her disappointment. ¡°I cannot fathom why such a brilliant and rational student entertains those pseudo-theories of conmen.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t believe it¡¯s all smoke and mirrors.¡± I¡¯d gone through one such unexplained experience in my youth, which inspired me to study science. ¡°I think there is indeed an invisible force around us that we cannot observe with the naked eye, but which has a tangible impact on reality. I simply need to develop the right tool to measure it.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t see how old alchemical books will help you with that, but suit yourself.¡± Germaine gave me a small nod as they approached the menacing gates of Portenoire¡¯s east wing. Great walls of gray stone loomed menacingly over us, while statues of angels stared down from the brick roof. ¡°Your next shift is in an hour.¡± ¡°I know,¡± I replied politely. ¡°Will I see you at the Universal Exposition?¡± ¡°Of course you will, dearie,¡± she replied with a warm smile. ¡°I wouldn¡¯t miss our Revolution¡¯s hundredth anniversary, nor spitting on that ugly metal tower disfiguring our city.¡± I was personally impressed with Eiffel¡¯s work, but Germaine was too stubborn for me to change her mind. I had the feeling its inauguration would be the exposition''s highlight. The year 1889 promised to be most memorable. I thanked Germane for her time and left her at the facility¡¯s double doors. The likeness of the Virgin Mary carved on them hardly made the place feel welcoming. The artists chose to portray her with a pitiless frown instead of a smile, likely to remind patients that disobedience would not be tolerated. Neither could she alleviate the howling screams of the madmen trapped in the basement. I¡¯d heard a few orderlies complain about the noise wearing them down mentally, but they only inspired pity from me. Those poor souls were begging for a cure I couldn¡¯t provide yet. Patience, Laurent, I told myself as I walked past the guest lobby and ascended one of the five marble staircases leading to the upper floors. A few more years and I will have completed the world¡¯s first dementia treatment. Patience. Director Rochard had been kind enough to provide me with a room on the first floor next to his own office, though it didn¡¯t differ from the average a patient¡¯s quarters: a set of walls, a pair of metal-framed beds with old musky mattresses, and a single window protected by simple blinds. I at least enjoyed my own wardrobe and desk, though I mostly used the former to store his books. My latest acquisition, a copy of the Lemegeton Clavicula Salomonis, lay on my desk between a human brain preserved in resin¡ªextracted with the director¡¯s permission for study¡ªand my homemade ¡°orgone detector¡±: a cluster of hollow copper tubes connected to a central silver pipe, and from there to steel wires connected into a Baudot telegraph keyboard. The grimoire was open on the first page, where I¡¯d stopped upon finding a familiar owl sigil and an irritating statement. ¡®Validated by the Bureau des Moeurs du Minist¨¨re de l¡¯Instruction Publique.¡¯ That awful call sign appeared on every alchemical and occult treaty I¡¯d managed to track down; a mark which I¡¯d grown to associate with censored texts and missing content. How did the government expect scientists to do their jobs when they allowed bureaucrats to interfere with their work in the name of outdated morality? I closed the door behind me, sat at my desk, and barely had time to settle when I heard a sharp clink. I looked at my orgone detector. Its telegraph had started printing dots on its paper strip. This was new. Had I triggered it by sitting down? I stood and watched as it continued to type. Could it be¡­ My eyes fell on Henry¡¯s book. I held it close to the detector¡¯s tubes. The steel wires began to vibrate, and the telegraph punched holes at a faster pace. ¡°Fascinating¡­¡± I muttered to myself. Franz Mesmer and Reichenbach had theorized about the existence of an invisible force linked to life, which they had called animal magnetism and odic force respectively. I preferred the term ¡®orgone¡¯ myself, since I only ever detected traces of it in living organic matter. Why would my detector react to a book of all things? Was its paper somehow imbued with its late owner¡¯s spirit? That seemed far-fetched, but I hadn¡¯t seen the detector react to any other object like this.The author''s content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. Henry kept the book close for as long as anyone could remember and reacted with distress whenever it was taken from him. It wasn¡¯t anything special, just a black and featureless journal devoid of any writing whatsoever. I never saw Henry write anything in it, if he still retained the ability while deep in dementia. Taking the journal and putting it to use had been my way of honoring his memory. I wasn¡¯t close to Henry¡ªI only ever changed his bedpans and fed him now and then¡ªbut the man cared enough about this book to clutch it during his last moments. It had value for him, even in the throes of his madness. Had this emotional attachment somehow rubbed off the document? If so, then it could prove to be a phenomenal breakthrough. I opened the book¡¯s first page to find a single sentence written in Latin.
I only reveal the truth to my master.
I frowned and flipped the page. Shock hit me as I saw the next pages scribbled over. Most words were written with various handwriting styles in alphabets I could not understand, but the latter parts revealed a series of names closed by a strange sentence.
Johannes Kepler Bernhard von Sachsen-Weimar Jean-Philippe de Beachamp Ali Puli Comte Manuel Bellamarre Soltikoff Edwin Soltikoff Catherine Soltikoff Alphonse Horace Soltikoff Henry Nelson
The old master is dead, may the new master live forever.
I scoffed in disgust. I didn¡¯t recall Henry ever writing anything in this book. Was this a prank from a fellow orderly? That dimwitted brute Andr¨¦, perhaps? It would have been his style, but I doubted he was bright enough to know about Johannes Kepler. Whoever did it, writing down Henry¡¯s name and crossing it out after his demise felt disrespectful. I flipped to the next pages only to find them all blank. I knew I should have dismissed these writings as a prank, but my detector¡¯s clicking noise continued to arouse my curiosity. ¡°I only reveal the truth to my master¡­¡± I murmured, eyeing the empty space below Henry¡¯s name and a wild idea crossed my mind. I took my fountain pen and then signed with my own name.
Laurent Valmore.
The machine¡¯s typing intensified with each letter I wrote. By the time I finished, the telegraph hammered the paper furiously. I stared at my name on the page for a moment that seemed to stretch on forever, with my device¡¯s noise alone breaking the silence. Then words suddenly appeared below my signature, written in French with pale red ink.
The Lost Deaths: A Guide to Murdering Mortalities
I gasped in shock and surprise. I could have sworn they¡­ No, no, my eyes did not deceive me. These words were new, fresh. Either I¡¯d gone mad or a force had indeed responded to my action. I looked back at my detector, whose paper roll had run out. The wires and tubes vibrated at an intensity I¡¯d never witnessed before. This was it¡ªa genuine supernatural phenomenon. Something was here, in my room, speaking to me through the book; perhaps the late Henry himself. Unable to contain my excitement, I flipped the pages and swiftly froze in shock at what I found. The drawing of a horrifying monster stared back at me. It was a vaguely arachnid abomination of viscous crimson slime carried on spindly legs, with two horns sprouting from its faceless head above a set of calculating bloodshot eyes. The sight of them filled me with an unease whose source he couldn¡¯t explain. A description written in French accompanied the drawing.
The Red Terror Death by the color red, who drove primitive men to frenzied violence with the sight of their own blood. Devoured at the dawn of humanity by a Qlippoth spawn of Ialdabaoth, Father of the Blood, before its banishment.
My jaw clenched as I flipped to the next page. I swiftly found another drawing instead of answers, this time representing a spiral of numbers that made my head spin. Its description was equally ominous.
The Final Equation Death by mathematics, a servant of the Hecatomb of Dementia. Slew those seeking to understand the secrets of the universe by reducing their brains to ones and zeroes. Destroyed on October 24th, 1601 in Prague by Johannes Kepler with the Silent King¡¯s guidance.
I kept going, each page revealing monstrous entities called ¡®Deaths¡¯ slain across the ages. Was this book a demonic bestiary of some sort? Yet I didn¡¯t find any mention of Hell or Heaven, only a list of ¡®Mortalities¡¯ which had never killed anyone. I counted dozens of entries, each described in lurid detail. The mystery further deepened once I reached the end of this twisted gallery. The last two entries, which described some kind of awful bird wearing a plague doctor¡¯s mask and a faceless human wrapped up in scrolls written in German, caught my eye.
Featherbane Death by feathers and quills, a minor Mortality in the service of the Hecatomb of Predation, whose touch caused fatal allergies to the weak of constitution. Slain by Henry Nelson during the Ankou Society¡¯s assault on his library in Paris, January 5th 1871. The Prussian Litany Death by German language, a minor Mortality in the service of the Hecatomb of Dementia. Murdered men with words that filled their brains with blood. Slain by Henry Nelson during the Ankou Society¡¯s assault on his library in Paris, January 5th 1871.
Both descriptions mentioned the late Henry Nelson, and the date during which he set his bookshop on fire with his customers still inside. I didn¡¯t recall ever hearing of an ¡®Ankou Society¡¯ though. The book implied Henry hadn¡¯t been the arson¡¯s culprit, but some kind of defender fighting these ¡®Mortalities¡¯ during an ¡®assault.¡¯ Strange, very strange indeed. I flipped to the next page only to find it blank, and then the next hundreds afterward. Barely a fraction of the book contained illustrations, as if the rest of the entries were missing; or perhaps, waiting to be written. I considered my options for a long time. The book had said that it only showed the truth to its master. I¡¯d unlocked its secrets by signing my name. What if I simply asked it for answers? ¡°Who are you?¡¯ I wrote on an empty page, half-heartedly expecting a lack of response. My orgone detector let out a droning noise louder than ever before. My words faded away¡­ only to be replaced by new ones written in pale red ink. ¡°A practical guide to immortality, so that men may live forever in defiance of Deaths great and small.¡± I was too stunned to move for a moment, but then quickly recovered. I¡¯d been wrong. I had assumed a spirit inhabited the book, but the document clearly referred to itself as an intelligent and independent entity; one whose existence triggered the orgone detector. A wild idea crossed my mind, one that threatened to undo all that I knew about science and life in general; a discovery greater than Darwin¡¯s own discovery of evolution. ¡°Are you alive?¡± I asked the book. And it answered with a simple yes. ¡°Are you possessed by a ghost or demon?¡± I inquired next. ¡°An angel mayhaps?¡± ¡°No,¡± the book replied. ¡°I have always been The Lost Deaths and served no other purpose than for which I was created.¡± So this¡­ thing existed as a living book. It wasn¡¯t a ghost or demon, but an impossible lifeform created with purpose. My heart pounded with excitement and wonder. Was it a unique case, or merely a specimen among many hidden in libraries? I had so many questions, and so little ink. ¡°What are these creatures you mention in your bestiary?¡± I asked the book. ¡°Demons?¡± ¡°They are the Deaths that were destroyed, freeing the world from their grasp and hunger. Many more remain. So long as a single one survives, the lives of men will end.¡± I read the response twice. Deaths, as in creatures, plural. Multiple forms of death preying on mankind and yet mortal themselves. The concept sounded absurd in my head, but then again, I was talking to a living book. ¡°How do you destroy a Death?¡± I asked. ¡°With magic,¡± the book answered simply. How could two simple words carry so much weight? They struck me like a bolt of lightning. Magic. The very thing I¡¯d devoted so much time to studying, the esoteric truth denied to me for so long was at long last within my grasp. ¡°How do you learn magic?¡± I asked out loud. I could have sworn that the pages chuckled as I wrote down those very words.
A/N: this is a the first chapter of a six-parts novella/short story entry for the RR Community Magazine January Contest, whose theme inspired me a great deal, so fair warning: this tale will be quite short. Hope you''ll enjoy it. 2: The Deaths Among Us What happened after death? The question had long bothered me for years, and philosophers since the beginning of humanity. All religions, from pagans to monotheists, put forth their own unprovable theories. Would the illusion of separation from an uncaring universe simply end? Would individual consciousness fade into a greater whole? Would their soul remain to reincarnate into a new shell or transcend into a heavenly respite? Was there even such a thing as a soul? For all of the Bible¡¯s proclamations of Jesus¡¯ return, I had yet to see any case of a living man returning from the unknown beyond. The truth was, nobody knew whether or not death was truly the end. It wasn¡¯t that I hoped religion was wrong, quite the contrary. The knowledge that there would be something to look forward to after life, that my consciousness would remain in this universe, that everything that made me me would endure, was infinitely preferable to the idea of¡­ blinking out. That thought terrified me to my core. The mere possibility that all my experience, all my knowledge, joys, fears, and regrets would simply cease to exist while an uncaring universe moved on was most unsettling. The Book of the Lost Deaths hadn¡¯t yet provided a rational answer to those questions, but it might remove the need for men to ask them in the first place. If it spoke the truth. I looked on as Mr. Devereaux read the book under a lamp¡¯s glow. The street was nigh empty save for the both of us and a few lowlifes. The good and respected people of Paris already avoided the Belleville quarter for its poverty and insalubrity, and retreated with the sun to abandon the night to drunks, prostitutes not fancy enough for Montmartre, and ruffians. Few police sergeants bothered to visit this part of town, let alone intervene. This made it the perfect time and place to arrange a meeting with Marcel Devereaux, one of my book fences¡ªand whose name I strongly suspected to be an alias. He was a man of impeccable taste and dress, with a neatly trimmed mustache flecked with silver, carefully combed hair folded under a hat, and the kind of tailored suit I would have expected from a well-born gentleman rather than a professional criminal. His green eyes flickered with amusement as he flipped through the Book of the Lost Deaths¡¯ pages. ¡°This is quite the odd book you¡¯ve brought me, my friend,¡± he said upon closing the manuscript and returning it to me. ¡°The flax paper used for the pages fit the methods used by pre-Islamic civilizations in the east, but the quality would indicate it was crafted yesterday.¡± ¡°Would you believe me if I said it was likely centuries old?¡± I asked. My fence scoffed. ¡°I would call you a liar, but color me intrigued. Where did you find this?¡± ¡°It comes from the library of Henry Nelson.¡± ¡°Nelson¡­ from the fire during the siege?¡± Marcel stroked his chin. The mere fact that he found the name familiar surprised me. ¡°I thought the Bureau had confiscated all of his acquisitions over the last decade.¡± I squinted in his direction. Mr. Devereaux didn¡¯t need to tell me which Bureau he was referring to, and their mere mention spoke volumes about the illegal nature of the late Nelson¡¯s bookstore. ¡°I didn¡¯t know he was famous.¡± ¡°I wouldn¡¯t call him famous¡­ more like a near-forgotten curiosity. I¡¯d heard rumors that Nelson trafficked with Russian mystics, African witch doctors, and other people of ill repute. Some collectors paid good money to put their hands on books that didn¡¯t burn with his library, only for the Bureau to take them back.¡± My eyes widened slightly. Henry Nelson was a book-seller and a collector, most of which had burned with his library. Could his occupation have been a front to gather occult grimoires and other artifacts? That would explain why the Bureau confiscated his work. ¡°I suppose an empty notebook did not seem worth the effort.¡± I could imagine why, since Mr. Devereaux didn¡¯t mention the Death entries. I only reveal the truth to my master, the book had said. It showed clueless readers only what it wanted them to see. ¡°I would like to learn more about Nelson, since some of his contacts might still be alive. Could you gather information on my behalf?¡± ¡°Yes¡­ but not for free.¡± I frowned. I¡¯d feared as much. ¡°How much do you want?¡± ¡°That will depend on the work required of me. Maybe a few francs, or a service to be decided at a later date.¡± The man¡¯s smile had all the sweetness of rancid butter. ¡°I¡¯ve heard that you¡¯re a well-regarded student at the Sorbonne and already assisted a teacher in a surgery.¡± ¡°You are well-informed.¡± Of course this kind of person investigated those they worked with. The wrong or clueless customer risked exposing them to authorities. ¡°Do you require my skills?¡± ¡°Not yet,¡± the man replied. ¡°Maybe not ever; but there might come a time when I will knock on your door and ask for your assistance. Should that time ever come, you will assent to my request and you won¡¯t ask questions.¡±Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings. In short, he would either ask me to participate in a crime or assist in a similar enterprise. I was wary of agreeing to that kind of bargain, but I had little choice. Trustworthy contacts were few and far between in our field. I didn¡¯t have the luxury of haggling. ¡°Very well,¡± I consented. ¡°A favor for a favor.¡± ¡°A pleasure then. I will come back to you once I learn more.¡± Mr. Devereaux coughed. ¡°I must issue a warning, however. If you fly too close to the sun like Icarus, you¡¯ll only get burned.¡± I smiled. ¡°That¡¯s not the moral I took from that tale.¡± ¡°Oh?¡± He raised an eyebrow at me. ¡°And which lesson did you learn from it then?¡± ¡°That men could fly if they put their minds to it.¡± He chuckled, and I watched him disappear into the darkness of Belleville soon after. I hoped he would prove true to his word. The asylum was legally required to disclose an inmate¡¯s death to the authorities as soon as possible, and if my suspicions were correct, then it was only a matter of time before someone came to investigate Henry¡¯s demise. I did not leave Belleville yet, however. I had another reason to set our meeting here, as the Book of the Lost Deaths had promised me a ¡®dark miracle¡¯ if I waited long enough. And so did I, for the Lord knew how long. I stood in the cold near the streetlight, waving off whores and drunks alike, keeping to the shadows. I couldn¡¯t tell if I waited for hours or minutes, but I eventually sensed the Book of the Lost Deaths faintly shuddering in my hands in what could pass for trepidation. I heard the sound of horse hooves hitting stones. I turned to look at a black carriage advancing on the road. It looked normal at first glance, almost ordinary, but that illusion lasted until it passed under the light. My heart pounded so hard in my chest that I thought I would have a stroke. This was a coach of the dead. The two horses pulling it were little more than walking corpses with sunken eyes, their hides stretching over fleshless bones. I had no idea how they could pull anything without collapsing dead on the ground. The coachman himself looked no better, with pallid skin and the bluish fingers of a dead man. His hat barely hid a set of black holes devoid of life where the eyes should have been, and I could hear his vertebrae hiss when he turned to stare at me. I wasn¡¯t the kind of mind to be easily frightened, but I found the sight so unsettling that I avoided the coachman¡¯s gaze. The carriage continued without pausing for a few meters and then stopped to take a drunkard waving at it with a bottle. I dared to take a peek at the vehicle. Its surface was black and its interior was hidden behind windows adorned with crimson curtains. I didn¡¯t see any joints linking the wheels to the rest of the structure, as if the entire vehicle formed a single whole. If the drunkard noticed that detail¡ªor the corpse-like driver for that matter¡ªhe didn¡¯t show it and opened the door wide enough for me to catch a glimpse of the inside. It seemed normal at first glance, with four passenger seats¡­ except for one small anomaly. The door had teeth for locks. By the time I realized what kind of abomination I¡¯d stumbled onto, it was already too late. The drunkard had walked inside and the door closed on him. The corpse-horses carried the carriage away into the dark soon after with a condemned passenger. I¡¯d always believed in the supernatural, or rather, in phenomena that science could not yet explain, but that¡­ that thing defied nature itself. I¡¯d faced a true monster of legends, and no one noticed. None of the ruffians in the street so much as blinked at this crew of the dead. This entity hid its true nature from them all, while I¡¯d been blessed with the truth. I opened the Lost Deaths and wrote the question burning on my mind: ¡°What was that creature?¡± ¡°The Coach-Eater,¡± the book replied. ¡°The lesser death by carriage, servant of the Hecatomb of Misfortune. Such is the beast whose blood you must obtain if you covet the power of a Chassemort.¡± A Chassemort? A death-hunter? I supposed it would be an appropriate title for someone following this book¡¯s guidelines. It called itself a guide to murdering Mortalities, after all. Nonetheless, why would I need this creature¡¯s blood? I didn¡¯t even have to write this question before the book answered it for me. ¡°I have opened your eyes to the hidden truth, but to step through the threshold of true magic requires greater dedication and sacrifice. To refine your body into that of a sorcerer and connect to the Web of Life, you must undergo the Nigredo: the blackness and putrefaction that comes from feeding on death itself.¡± I¡¯d read enough censored alchemy books to recognize the word Nigredo for the first step in creating the legendary Philosopher¡¯s Stone, a device said to grant immortality. However, the Lost Deaths spoke of refining my body instead of a substance. ¡°This is but the first step of a long journey, isn¡¯t it?¡± I wrote into the book. ¡°Do you expect me to become a Philosopher¡¯s Stone?¡± ¡°Like any other substance, the human body and mind can be perfected,¡± it replied. ¡°True immortality will only be achieved once all Mortalities will have been exterminated, but imperishable youth and immense power are nonetheless within your grasp.¡± I could read between the lines: I had to seize the power of magic from this demon the same way Prometheus stole fire from the gods. I wasn¡¯t foolish enough to take the book¡¯s promises of power and youth at face value, but if half of what it said was true¡­ nay, I was simply too curious to turn back now. I had taken a peek behind the curtain and now craved to see more. ¡°How do I kill this creature?¡± I asked the book. ¡°You said I required magic to kill death. How can I do that if I can only gain magic by slaying it first?¡± ¡°A lesser death like this one will perish like any other beast, through guile or strength.¡± ¡°I would have preferred detailed steps,¡± I retorted. Its answer disappointed me. ¡°I am a guide to immortality and hunting down Mortalities, but the path I offer is fraught with peril. I will not teach my secrets to an unworthy master. The Coach-Eater¡¯s death, thus, I demand as proof of your skills.¡± My jaw clenched in frustration. ¡°What of your former master¡¯s inheritance then? Or this Ankou Society you mentioned?¡± ¡°All will be revealed once you undergo the rite.¡± I snapped the book shut. I was tempted to threaten it with burned pages to force it to reveal its secrets, but I had the intuition it would backfire. A magical artifact capable of altering the perception of others could easily slip through my grasp at any point. I couldn¡¯t let this one-in-a-lifetime opportunity to learn the truth about death slip through my grasp. Moreover¡­ to be honest with myself, I would have hunted down that Coach-Eater for free anyway; both because a monster like that one shouldn¡¯t exist in the first place, and because its mere existence drove me to intense curiosity. The hunt was on. 3: Memento Mori I spent my days studying how to save men, and my nights figuring out how to kill a monster. I had never hunted an animal in the past¡ªif I could call a man-eating carriage an animal¡ªbut I approached the matter like a biology class: first I would investigate my target in order to learn its habits and behavior, and then I would exploit them to lay a trap. When it appeared the night after I met Mr. Devereaux in Belleville, I immediately noticed that its coachman had changed. In place of the previous driver stood the monster¡¯s last passenger, now a pallid corpse with black and empty holes for eyes. It didn¡¯t take me long to figure out the awful truth. Tonight¡¯s meal would become tomorrow¡¯s lure. If I wasn¡¯t already willing to destroy the Coach-Eater, then that fact would have sealed its fate. I thus spent the better part of the week visiting Belleville after my studies and working at the asylum to observe the creature from afar. Mr. Devereaux didn¡¯t try to contact me, so I had all the time in the world to dedicate myself to this task. I quickly noticed a behavioral pattern. From what I could observe, the Coach-Eater only stopped once a night to pick up a client along an unchanging itinerary across Belleville. I¡¯d first assumed that it had to rest somewhere to sleep like an animal, but as far as I could tell it simply appeared and vanished out of thin air at dusk and dawn respectively. Did it somehow slip through an invisible portal to whatever nightmarish realm spawned it? Or did it simply move to another city around the world to prey on a fresh new street filled with victims? I could not tell, and that frustrated me. Moreover, The Coach-Eater did not leave any evidence of its depredations behind. A living being should expel indigestible pellets of bones, clothes, or metal. Not this creature. Whatever way that monster consumed us humans, it destroyed everything in the process. Only its victims¡¯ faces remained to be worn on the next night. I suspected that the driver was little more than a lure or puppet, since I¡¯d never heard it speak to its victims. The corpse would at best nod or move the horses¡¯ reins, but the stiffness of the gestures leaned towards the mechanical; like a dog wagging its tail. I couldn¡¯t tell whether the change in driver was the creature¡¯s crude attempt at changing its disguise to avoid being recognized, or a sign that the poor sods¡¯ corpses were actually becoming parts of that infernal coach; and for once, I wasn¡¯t sure I wanted an answer to that question. It did not kill immediately though. The coach¡¯s windows offered me a peek of the cabin inside; so while the darkness of night obviously limited what I could see during that time, it let me catch a glimpse of its occupants. The victims showed no sign of distress for a few minutes until the monster took them to an isolated, narrow alley at 20th Arrondissement¡¯s Frontier. I¡¯d managed to climb onto a nearby building¡¯s roof to observe it from above. The Coach-Eater¡¯s curtains always closed once it reached the area, and the cabin was always empty when they opened up again. I¡­ I was very much tempted to warn the victims each time it stopped to pick someone up. I tried to prevent a man from boarding it on the third night by striking a conversation before he could climb onto the Coach-Eater, but the creature quickly responded by driving a few steps forward and taking another person instead. It was then that I realized that the monster never stopped for couples or families. It only went after isolated individuals and fled from any groups, perhaps for fear of attracting too much attention; and if it couldn¡¯t find a suitable catch on a given night, it would simply move on and leave empty-handed. The narrow alley where it consumed its victims was also coincidentally almost always deserted late at night. That kind of stratagem could only mean one thing. This otherworldly predator possessed the gift of intelligence. I steeled myself and stuck to mere observation after that. If the entity had the ability to think and I began to catch its attention by denying it its meals, then it might learn to identify and avoid me. I would only have one chance at taking that Coach-Eater by surprise and I couldn¡¯t waste it. I told myself that those deaths were a small sacrifice to gather the information required to put down the creature for good. If the Coach-Eater had been stalking our capital¡¯s streets for years and consumed a victim each day on average, then its body count was likely astronomical. Adding seven lives to the tally today would be a cheap price to spare a thousand tomorrow. Moreover, the Book of the Lost Deaths implied that slaying this creature would put an end to all coach-related deaths across the world. I had no idea how this would even work¡ªthe prospect still sounded absurd in my head¡ªbut simply reducing the risk of coach-related accidents at all would spare countless lives. These few victims were a handful of martyrs in the grand scheme of things. It wasn¡¯t like I could inform the police either. The Coach-Eater left no traces of its activities, and it only preyed on people unlikely to be missed. No one would believe me, nor care. Which left me with a simple question: ¡°How does a lone man kill a living carriage?¡±This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there. I knew I would only have one shot at the task and it would likely require more than an axe. Failure would likely cause the creature to either change its behavior or warily move on to another hunting ground. I had to ensure its utter destruction in a single attempt. The obvious solution would be a bomb set in the alley, but beside the fact that blowing up a street would get me labeled as an anarchist and promptly guillotined, I had no access to effective explosives on a medical student¡¯s budget. Moreover, such detonation might only impair or faintly damage the creature. Carriages were built to last nowadays. If I considered the cabin like a beast¡¯s gullet, then the Coach-Eater¡¯s insides would likely be its most vulnerable part. Should I use poison? This would have worked on an animal, but the Coach-Eater clearly did not follow the normal rules of nature. It didn¡¯t produce waste from its victims, so it might not even have a digestive system to speak of. Which left only one surefire solution, which would require lowering the Coach-Eater¡¯s vigilance and avoiding making a scene that would lead to my arrest. The best place to do so would be the narrow alley where it killed its victims, but it would never let an outsider approach it there. The attack would have to be carried out from the inside by a passenger. Which begged another question: ¡°How does a lone man survive killing a living carriage while inside its gullet?¡± Whatever method the Coach-Eater used to kill its victims only took a minute at best, and it locked the doors leading outside. This left only a very narrow window of opportunity if the executioner expected to survive. I¡­ I guessed I didn¡¯t have to do it myself. I could pay some money-hungry chap to proceed with the operation and¡­ supervise¡­ ¡­ No. No, no, definitively not. That was a dangerous trail of thought. I studied medicine to save lives, not take them. Watching the Coach-Eater¡¯s feeding habits to study it was one thing, but willingly sending a fellow human being to their death was a line too far. Besides¡­ besides I had no guarantee anyone foolish enough to take such a deal would actually follow through with it. I would have only one chance to kill the Coach-Eater, and that was what the Book of the Lost Deaths asked of me. This was my test. My ordeal. My chance to prove my skills. I would have to do it myself.
It took me three days to prepare and Germaine¡¯s cooperation before I felt confident enough to strike. No¡­ no, that was a lie. I was about as nervous as a condemned man facing the guillotine, and I would rather have waited another week to gather more information. Alas, every passing day increased the risk of someone spotting me. I couldn¡¯t risk a Belleville local reporting my description to an area linked to a set of mysterious disappearances. I still had no news from Mr. Devereaux either. I was starting to wonder if he had skipped town or forgotten about my request. In any case, I mustered up the courage to show up that night. My scarf and heavy coat suffocated me. The weight of the tools I hid underneath the latter exhausted me. I¡¯d never been more accurately aware of my lack of exercise than tonight. I was no Heracles coming to challenge the Nemean Lion to a wrestling match, but a Ulysses about to confront the Cyclops. I had left the Book of the Lost Deaths at the asylum for Pierre to open up should¡­ should I not return. My gravekeeper friend appeared puzzled by my request, and I hoped he wouldn¡¯t have to learn of its true significance. I heard hooves stomping on the pavement, and then my blood went cold. The Coach-Eater stepped out of the shadows, its eyeless driver staring into the distance with empty eyes filled with starless darkness. It moved for the streetlight on which I waited with the steady and casual stroll of a predator about to pick an easy prey. I looked up at the driver, and the image of my eyeless face staring back at me from atop the coach immediately struck me. Fear overtook me, and my knees weakened. Every fiber of my body was telling me to run away, to abandon my plan and save myself. I clenched my fist to suppress my trembling fingers. I had dealt with enough inmates suffering from panic attacks or worse to know how to anchor myself. Latin phrases usually worked wonders for me. Dum spiro spero, I told myself. Memento viviere. I dared to raise my hand, and the Coach-Eater stopped right in front of me. Its door-maw opened to reveal a facsimile of a cabin and lock-teeth which only I could see. I took a deep and long breath, then stepped inside. Two red couches awaited me within the cabin, alongside a set of narrow windows barely large enough for a man to slip through. I barely had time to sit before the door closed behind me. The couch was as red as it was rough. Its texture was of a leathery sort, but a bit too moist to the touch. It didn¡¯t take me long to identify it for what it truly was. A tongue. Alea Iacta Est, I told myself when I heard the teeth-lock creaking and trapping me inside. Alea Iacta Est. ¡°Bring me to the Rue de la R¨¦union,¡± I said. The Coach-Eater began to drive across Belleville in response. I knew from prior observation that it would pretend to follow the correct itinerary at first so as not to arouse its passenger¡¯s suspicions, but it would inevitably subtly deviate and bring us to its killing ground. I had no idea how the creature perceived things from inside its cabin, so I erred on the side of caution. I had to beat it at its own game; pretend to be a normal passenger the same way it mimicked a coach until I could spring my trap. I grabbed a cigarette and a match from my coat, both of which I borrowed from Germaine. She mocked me mercilessly for trying out smoking after I admonished her about it often before, but I had no intention of taking up the activity. This poison¡¯s mere taste almost made me puke. But I now had a fuse. I took a moment to observe my surroundings. There was no clear frontier between the glass windows and the wooden door, nor the red curtains; all of them melded together harmoniously like spots on a canvas of skin. As I suspected, there was no way for me to open the windows without the use of force. I looked through them and swiftly recognized the narrow walls of a dark alley tainted with piss and alcohol spots. I had spent enough time in Belleville to identify my location. My time was up. My hand moved under my coat and brought out a bottle filled with a dark and murky substance of my own creation. I opened it and then carefully spilled it over on the couch in front of me, the floor, the walls, and part of the doors while leaving myself a safe path to use. My potion stuck to everything like a thick glue. I quickly sensed my seat shuddering beneath me. The Coach-Eater was starting to grow suspicious, but it was far too late to make a difference. The Bureau had done a good job of censoring alchemical treaties, but information always slipped through. It had only been a matter of cross-referencing morsels of truth with my own chemistry classes to figure it all out. The Byzantines guarded their Greek Fire formula so tightly that their invention was now lost to time; but I daresay I was quite proud of my imitation. ¡°I hope this hurts,¡± I said aloud. I tossed my cigarette into the substance, and then there was light. 4: Memento Viviere Fire. Fire was the friend who never betrayed you. You could always count on it to burn all it touched. When I was a child, I saw one of my classmates¡ªa young child by the name of Thomas Flagel¡ªcatch fire without explanation. He carried no match, nothing to smoke, and no tool which could have caused the ignition. His flesh simply caught fire while we were playing ball. It was only luck that he managed to survive by jumping into a nearby river, and even then he still bore marks that remained with him for the rest of his life. Not only had this incident been the height of strangeness for me at the time, but I¡¯d soon learned that his elder brother Andr¨¦ also caught fire at the exact same time on the other side of town; except he had burned to ashes. Their sister, Agn¨¨s, was left so traumatized by the event that investigators could hardly make sense out of her testimony, but between her sobs and ramblings they discerned two words: ¡°ghost¡± and ¡°fire.¡± It was that incident of spontaneous human combustion that first convinced me of the supernatural¡¯s existence. I¡¯d first applied to Portenoire when I heard Agn¨¨s had been interned there after being involved in another similar case in Paris. She was too traumatized to speak about it, but I knew deep within myself that she had taken a glimpse past the curtain. The fire I summoned within the Coach-Eater¡¯s belly was no supernatural event. Its blue sulfur flames were an act of science, research, and industry. My substance would continue to burn until it had exhausted all fuel, and not even water would quench its appetite. The Coach-Eater screamed as the couch ahead of me and part of the floor began to burn. Its tongues wavered and flailed with such frenzy that I was nearly thrown off them. A deep and inhuman wail of agony arose from beneath my feet, and I could hear the bellowing growl of undead horses outside. The monster was in pain. It almost put a smile on my face. I had no time to waste though, lest I burn with the coach. I had to break the window and make my way outside. Thankfully, it was disturbingly easy to buy a handaxe in Paris. I grabbed the one I¡¯d hidden beneath my coat, rose from my couch by stepping past the rising flames, and then smashed the window with all my strength. It cracked and bled. A black and viscous substance colder than ice sprayed my weapon and hands. Its mere touch hurt the few patches of skin it managed to reach. It burned not like an all-consuming fire, but the cruelest of chills, one which reached all the way to my bones. Pulsating veins appeared on the window around the point where I struck it, the glass turning into a moist substance which I immediately recognized. A sclera. The windows were eyes, and the curtains were eyelids. That realization didn¡¯t stop me though. I hit it again and again until the window shattered and my hands were sprayed with thick black blood. The false glass broke and opened the way to the outside world, freeing smoke to escape into the cold night outside. The hole was now large enough for me to slip through, and I immediately powered through the pain and struggled to crawl to the other side. I was halfway through when hands grabbed me by the legs. I dared to look over my shoulder, and then I saw them. I now knew why the Coach-Eater never expelled waste after digesting its passengers. It never let them go. The coach¡¯s floor had collapsed, revealing a gaping pit that seemed to go far below what its form should allow. Pale, eyeless corpses wailed below in between rows of mechanical wheels crushing their legs and backs like one of those infernal Prussian wood chippers. They wailed and screamed as the wheels pulled them deeper into the horrible contraption, their hands grabbing my ankles in an attempt to either follow me to freedom or drag me down to suffer with them. I recognized faces from past nights¡¯ victims among them, their final expressions frozen in terror. That was how the Coach-Eater killed them. It simply opened up its floor and crushed its passengers alive. I didn¡¯t think, I just kicked. I tried to push these corpses back, but they insisted. Their hands closed on my legs and tried to pull on me¡­ only to release their grip with wails of pain and surprise. They had hit the barbs. Prior to approaching the Coach-Eater, I had taken the time to envelop my limbs and chest with barbed wire hidden below the coat. It had been a safety measure in case the monster tried to swallow me ahead of time. I assumed these metal spikes would have hurt it during digestion and forced it to spit me out. I guess I had been half-right. The barbs wouldn¡¯t have saved me from being crushed to death, but they did hurt the corpses enough for them to let me go. A terrible realization washed over me as I escaped their grasp. They were dead, but not dead enough to be free from pain. I managed to slip out of the cabin and hit the alley¡¯s cold cobblestone floor below, shoulder first. The fall hurt, doubly so when some of the barbs broke on impact and cut my skin, but it beat being crushed to death. I rolled up against a wall that smelled of piss while the Coach-Eater hit another. I smiled as I watched it burn. My flames soon filled the cabin and had begun to consume the wood making up the bulk of the infernal vehicle. I heard the screams of its victims coming from within, the shadow of the consumed corpses dancing in the sulfur light. The horses stopped and began to rot away years in the span of seconds. Their desiccated flesh turned to dust in an instant, leaving nothing in their wake¡­ but it was the driver that spooked me the most. It went through dozens of faces in the span of seconds, wearing the visage of its victims one after the other in chronological order, until it finally transformed back into what I assumed was its true self. The creature looked at me with black, smoking wheel-shaped holes for eyes. It had no mouth, no nose, not even ears; only a smooth mask of pallid blue skin that never belonged to a human being in the first place. I sensed the gleam of a malevolent intelligence staring back from the darkness, and the cold expression of a primal emotion which I immediately recognized. Hate. It was then, at the very moment when I gazed into that bottomless abyss of seething loathing, that I understood that this thing didn¡¯t kill men because it required our flesh to survive. This was no beast driven by instinct, no karmic bureaucrat following through with a task it never chose. This Death did not hunt us out of cold indifference or out of a desire to balance some cosmic sheet. This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it. It killed us out of malice. The coach¡¯s burning door opened to reveal a maw of teeth that let out a final howl. The strident, high-pitched screams of hundreds of murdered victims wailing forced me to cover my ears. My vision blurred as the flames consumed the Coach-Eater whole. I sensed a vibration spread through the air; a wave that seeped its way through the air, the stones, and my very bones. Paris, nay, the entire world shuddered when Death by Coaches at last met its end. The universe flickered for an instant, and then it was gone. I remained still along the stone wall, staring at a bed of ashes and dust covering the alley¡¯s floor. The chilling night wind carried them away into the sky in an instant. The Coach-Eater had left neither bones nor a trace of its existence; nothing except the thick black blood that now stained my axe and coat. I had killed a Death, and none would know it.
I returned to the asylum, stored the Coach-Eater¡¯s blood in a glass vial, tended to my wounds, took a large dose of morphine when the pain proved too horrendous, and then slept for a full day. This caused me to miss my first university course since I began my attendance. I knew that it was an absurd thought to have after what I went through last night, but it underlined a very simple fact about my life: it would never be normal again. When I woke up the next day in my bed, part of me briefly wondered if I had hallucinated everything; that I had simply woken up from a dark nightmare which I would soon forget. It only took me a moment to glance at the thick black blood vial next to the Lost Deaths, followed by the sharp pain coursing through my body from small wounds and burns, to realize otherwise. Unveiling my bandages to clean them only confirmed it. My skin showed an advanced stage of necrosis wherever the Coach-Eater¡¯s blood touched it. Thick black patches marred my hands and wrists, though thankfully not so far that I couldn¡¯t hide them beneath sleeves and gloves. Working at an asylum thankfully meant I had access to medical supplies. I¡¯d never understood how painful necrosis could actually be until now. I felt the Coach-Eater¡¯s chilling cold in those patches every time I moved or cleaned my bandages; and more than that, I remembered the hungry touch of those wailing corpses in its gullet. The morphine only dulled the pain so far, and it would take weeks for the wounds to fully heal. No normal substance could have caused such degradation so quickly. I hadn¡¯t been dreaming. It had all been real. I had killed a monster and lived to tell the tale. I would be lying if I said it didn¡¯t bring some contentment. I had fulfilled my agreement with the Lost Deaths and slain a beast that had preyed on hundreds of lives, thus saving many more. I knew that I had made the world a better place. Nonetheless, I couldn¡¯t stop thinking about those¡­ those screaming corpses in the beast¡¯s gullet, nor the baleful glare the Coach-Eater sent me before perishing. That¡­ that had been evil, true evil; the kind of fiend which religions warned us against but whose depthless malice they could never truly fathom. This creature had only been a minor Mortality according to the Lost Deaths. What other horrors lurked among us, unseen and ever-hungry? I was too spooked to question the Lost Deaths immediately nor undergo its ritual. I needed to clear my mind, and so I did. I cleaned up and then invited Germaine to visit the Universal Exposition with me. She kindly accepted. ¡°So?¡± she asked me as I returned her matchbox to her, cleaned of all of the Coach-Eater¡¯s blood. ¡°How was your first smoke?¡± ¡°Terrible, but somehow I do not regret it,¡± I replied a bit slower than usual. The painkillers slowed my wits. ¡°My apologies for not being available in the past few days. I¡¯ve been busy.¡± ¡°I can imagine, considering the hours at which you returned home.¡± She smiled keenly at me. ¡°Do not tell me you¡¯ve been taken with some girl?¡± ¡°I have no time for such frivolities.¡± I had no interest in romance whatsoever and my work came ahead of everything else; especially now. ¡°Perhaps I will show you what I¡¯ve been up to once I¡¯ve advanced it a little more.¡± ¡°I¡¯m looking forward to it,¡± she said as we exited the sanitarium. ¡°Would you kindly call a coach for us? My legs are old and tired.¡± I winced. ¡°I would rather walk, if you don¡¯t mind the exercise. Carriages¡­ carriages aren¡¯t too safe, nowadays.¡± Germaine gave me the strangest of looks, and then the kind of expression a parent would reserve for a na?ve and foolish child who had just said the stupidest thing in the world. ¡°Oh, silly Laurent,¡± she said kindly. ¡°Carriages have never killed anyone.¡±
The most distasteful part of the Universal Exposition, in my mind, was the colonial wing at the Invalides, where the authorities paraded pavilions and indigenes from our colonies across the world. I never understood the appeal of watching so-called ¡®savages¡¯ pretending to live in recreations of their homes. I¡¯d opened up enough corpses to tell that a black man¡¯s skeleton looked no different than that of a white man or an Asian. The dead all looked the same to me. Unfortunately, the authorities spared no expense in reminding us of France¡¯s great ¡®civilizational mission¡¯¡ªwhoever invented that term ought to have been interned at Portenoire¡ªand turned colonial pavilions into an unmissable part of the exposition. Germaine insisted that we visit the S¨¦n¨¦gal one out of curiosity, and I didn¡¯t have the strength left to tell her no. And then¡­ and then my entire world came crashing down. A month ago, an incident made national news. Colonel Duchemin, the man in charge of this part of the expedition, ended up slain in a carriage crash in S¨¦n¨¦gal alongside his wife and child. From what the newspaper said, the driver had lost control of the horses on their way to the port and the vehicle ended up thrown sideways, crushing all its passengers. The exposition¡¯s staff had to hastily replace Duchemin with someone else. So imagine my surprise when I watched the colonel¡ªsomeone who should be as dead as a man could get¡ªgive us a presentation of the ¡®senegalaise way of life.¡¯ I didn¡¯t remember anything about the lecture. I simply stared at the man for half an hour, all my thoughts coming to a halt the moment he introduced himself. He was the very picture of the fifty-something colonial officer, a man as vociferous as he was arrogant, with a crippled leg and a skin marred by an unforgiving sun; but most importantly, he was alive. I felt his warmth when he shook my hand on our way out of the pavilion, the pain growing sharper when he accidentally pressed on the patches of necrosis beneath my gloves. ¡°If I may, my colonel?¡± I remember Germaine asking him. ¡°How is your son? I¡¯ve heard he was wounded in that awful incident.¡± ¡°My boy was spooked, but more afraid than hurt,¡± the man replied with a warm chuckle, before glancing at his wounded leg. ¡°Not unlike his father, who will never walk straight again I¡¯m afraid. I thank God each day to have spared our lives.¡± I would have said that he was welcome if such a statement hadn¡¯t been the height of blasphemy. His words at least jolted me enough out of my shock to interrogate him. As it turned out, the accident did happen, but no one onboard the carriage perished. The colonel¡¯s leg was crushed by the fall and his wife broke an arm. The man confessed that his lady did die a few days later from an infection caused by her injury¡ªsomething he blamed on the lack of good doctors in the colonies¡ªbut it happened so long after the crash that I could hardly attribute it to it. After the visit, I made a stop at the nearest library and reviewed every report of carriage accidents over the last year. A task which proved difficult, since carriages had been called the ¡®world¡¯s safest means of transportation¡¯ and lived up to their reputation. My memory of crashes and other incidents clashed with written accounts. As far as I could tell, no one had ever directly perished in a carriage accident since their creation. Crashes did happen¡ªthe laws of physics being what they were¡ªbut everyone involved in one simply survived with wounds. Many died later from complications unrelated incidents or very distant consequences such as infections, yet some formerly dead people still survived to this day. Even an infamous incident where a French nobleman had a man run over by his own vehicle to death had changed. The new version reported that he simply crushed his victim¡¯s legs, and then walked down to finish him off with a bullet to the head. I had created a world in which death by carriage had become an impossible aberration. It was a good start. 5: Dies Irae Someone stole Henry¡¯s corpse in the morning. The asylum was in uproar at the news, though I wasn¡¯t entirely surprised. I¡¯d expected someone to come investigate Henry¡¯s death soon. That they¡¯d been brazen enough to break into our cemetery, unearth his corpse, and abscond with it the day after I slew the Coach-Eater did take me aback. The two events had to be linked, and I could see how. Whoever desecrated Henry¡¯s tomb thought he had been involved in the Coach-Eater¡¯s death and wished to confirm his demise. This could only mean that the Coach-Eater wasn¡¯t working alone, as scary as it sounded. Others of its kind had probably taken note of its disappearance and would hunt down the one responsible. Did these monsters socialize like men? Did they keep in touch from a distance? I somehow couldn¡¯t imagine such primeval horrors acting so humans. It was more likely that they could sense each other¡¯s destruction like sharks smelling blood in the water. How long would it take until they tracked its destruction back to me? I was sure I¡¯d left no trace nor been seen by anyone, but if the graverobbers knew about the Lost Deaths, then they could simply have to interrogate the staff to put two and two together. I better watch my back from now on. Neither did it surprise me when Director Rochard summoned me one morning to his office without an explanation. What took me aback was his two guests sitting on the other side of his desk: a pair of gendarmes in uniforms. They looked like nothing to write home about until I spotted the familiar, silver insignia on their chests. The Bureau des Moeurs¡¯ all-seeing owl. It took all of my willpower not to show my unease and distaste. I¡¯d been careful to hide the Lost Deaths, the blood vial, and my other research in the asylum¡¯s basement where I doubted anyone would ever find them, yet I knew these two had come for me. ¡°Laurent, my dear, come in,¡± Director Rochard said upon inviting me in. A graying man with spectacles going on in his middle-age, he was always scrupulously clean at any hour of the day. More than that, he had always been open-minded about my research and always looked the other way. I hoped he wouldn¡¯t change his mind today. ¡°Let me introduce you to Officers Delacroix and Giroud. They are here to ask you some questions.¡± As I feared. I hid my unease behind a tired smile. The gendarmes¡¯ names were carved on their insignia now that I took a closer look at them. I¡¯d always expected a visit from the Bureau since I began collecting forbidden books and rehearsed this conversation in my mind many times. ¡°Greetings,¡± I said with the utmost politeness before shaking their hands and suppressing a wince of pain. The necrosis patches beneath my gloves remained terribly painful, and neither pills nor poultices did much to lessen the agony. ¡°Is this about the grave robbery? It was quite shocking.¡± ¡°I am afraid we are here for a potentially unrelated case, but be certain that my colleagues are investigating the incident as we speak,¡± Officer Delacroix replied with icy grey eyes. He assessed me for a second and then went straight for the throat. ¡°What relationship did you have with G¨¦rard Leloup?¡± ¡°G¨¦rard Leloup?¡± I frowned in genuine confusion. ¡°The name means nothing to me.¡± ¡°Yet you were listed among his clients.¡± Officer Delacroix grabbed a notebook and began to read a page. ¡°Perhaps he approached you under an alias then. Would the name Marcel Devereaux be more familiar to you?¡± ¡°Devereaux?¡± I repeated, my pulse quickening with dread while I struggled to keep a straight face. Did that ruffian sell me out? I knew it was odd he hadn¡¯t contacted me in nearly two weeks! ¡°Yes, I¡¯ve met a man with that name. I¡¯ve consulted him on a few books I¡¯ve acquired but whose legitimacy I doubted.¡± ¡°Did you now?¡± The officer raised a skeptical eyebrow. ¡°I hope you knew that the man was a forger and grifter.¡± ¡°Hence why I consulted him.¡± I feigned curiosity. ¡°Did something happen to this man?¡± The way the gendarmes looked at me confirmed that yes, something did. Officer Giroud shifted slightly. ¡°Where were you yesterday Mr. Valmore?¡± The tone implied that whether or not I would have to follow them to a police station depending on my answer, so I told them the truth. ¡°I visited the Universal Exposition with another alienist colleague, and we returned later in the evening,¡± I replied. ¡°Afterwards I went to assist Director Rochard until late at night and then went to sleep around¡­ eleven, I believe?¡± Rochard backed up my words with a nod. ¡°I can confirm it.¡± ¡°Which colleague?¡± Delacroix pressed and wrote down Germaine¡¯s name the moment it escaped my mouth. I knew they would interrogate her as soon as they finished with me. ¡°When did you last meet with Mr. Devereaux?¡± ¡°Nearly two weeks ago, officers.¡± He¡¯s dead or in trouble. I was sure of it now. The only reason gendarmes asked those questions was to confirm alibis or interrogate witnesses. ¡°Did something happen to him?¡± ¡°We fished him out of the Seine this morning,¡± Officer Giroud replied bluntly. I scowled. ¡°Was¡­ was it an accident?¡± ¡°No, clearly not. His murderer cut him open from chin to groin.¡± Delacroix uttered those awful words with the casualness of a law officer who had seen dozens of such cases before. ¡°The murder took place yesterday according to our preliminary analysis.¡± I didn¡¯t hide my shock. That kind of barbarism was beyond what most criminals would go for; and I knew, deep within my bones, that it was related to his investigation of Nelson¡¯s past. ¡°That is awful,¡± Director Rochard said with sincere horror. ¡°What kind of savage could do this?¡± ¡°That is what we are here to find out,¡± Delacroix replied before focusing back on me. ¡°What did you consult Mr. Devereaux on?¡±Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. ¡°A copy of the Lemegeton Clavicula Salomonis,¡± I replied. Officer Giroud clearly struggled to stifle a laugh, and I couldn¡¯t blame him. I¡¯d seen what a real demon looked like, and those demonology books clearly missed the mark. ¡°It was mere curiosity, I assure you. I do not believe in witchcraft.¡± ¡°Good for you. You understand that we will have to confiscate this book as part of our investigation, of course.¡± Delacroix moved on without pause. ¡°Did the victim question you about Henry Nelson?¡± They knew. They knew Devereaux died because he had been investigating a dead man¡¯s contacts. ¡°Do you think this is connected to the graverobbing?¡± I asked while feigning surprise. ¡°Answer the question, young man,¡± Officer Giroud replied icily. I stroked my chin and pretended to be deep in thought. ¡°I do not recall for certain,¡± I lied through my teeth. ¡°I may have idly mentioned our patient¡¯s death during our conversation, but it was weeks ago.¡± ¡°I see,¡± Officer Delacroix replied. I could tell from his icy stare that he found me suspicious, but not enough to arrest me on the spot. ¡°We will keep in touch. If you remember anything pertaining to the case, please inform us.¡± ¡°I will,¡± I lied through my teeth. Afterwards, the gendarme promptly confiscated my censored copy of Lemegeton Clavicula Salomonis¡ªwhom I was sure I would never get back¡ªinterrogated the asylum staff about my whereabouts yesterday, and then left disappointed once my alibi proved foolproof. They would return, of course. The Bureau knew who I was now, and they would never keep me out of sight. ¡°Did you do it?¡± Director Rochard asked me in private the moment the gendarmes left. I shook my head. ¡°No. No, of course not.¡± ¡°Were you involved then?¡± The Director was no fool. He could tell this was no ordinary murder. ¡°Is this about your research?¡± ¡°Mayhaps. I can¡¯t tell yet, but I assure you I¡¯ll do everything to ensure the asylum¡¯s reputation remains clean.¡± This had been the director¡¯s price for tolerating my more unsavory activities. Should anything happen, then I would take the blame. ¡°I appreciate that you didn¡¯t mention Henry¡¯s book to them.¡± Director Rochard frowned at me. ¡°Which book?¡± I stared back at him, saw the genuine confusion in his gaze, and then didn¡¯t push the subject further. After completing my work for the day, I descended into the asylum¡¯s basement. Portenoire was built on old sepultures and quarries whose rooms now served as cells for our more troubled inmates, and Director Rochard allocated me one of them for more problematic experiments such as dissections. I had stored the Lost Deaths there alongside the Coach-Eater¡¯s blood. The book was open when I found it in its hidden alcove, waiting for me under a gaslamp¡¯s pale glow. Red words awaited me on the pages. ¡°My congratulations on your first hunt, master,¡± the book praised me. ¡°Death¡¯s grip on mankind has loosened a bit more, and true power is now within your grasp by right of conquest.¡± The Coach-Eater¡¯s demise was worth celebrating, but I had too many questions in mind for now. ¡°You are like that thing,¡± I wrote down. ¡°You can only be perceived by us mortals if you choose to.¡± ¡°Yes; I appeared to those whom I sensed within the potential to become my new master, such as you and that woman, Germaine. I have faded away from others¡¯ minds until none but you may remember me. This Devereaux did not betray our secret, because he had forgotten it.¡± So his murder was indeed about the Nelson investigation. ¡°Did a Mortality slay him?¡± ¡°No,¡± the book said. ¡°The Mortalities do not leave any remains. They take everything.¡± A chill went down my spine. Devereaux died by the hands of men, not monstrosities. I could think of a potential culprit. ¡°Was it the so-called Ankou Society then? Who are they?¡± The Lost Deaths¡¯ answer proved most disturbing. ¡°A cult of humans dedicated to worshiping the Hecatombs, who rule lesser Deaths like gods lord over men.¡± I sneered in disgust upon recalling the Coach-Eater. ¡°How could anyone worship such an abomination?¡± ¡°The Mortalities can provide many blessings to the desperate and the weak-willed, the least of which being the privilege to live one more day and a sliver of their power,¡± the Lost Deaths replied. ¡°Many of my previous masters died at the hands of such men.¡± A chill traveled down my spine. ¡°Why not Henry?¡± The book¡¯s pages rustled as its response appeared on the soft paper. ¡°Because there will always be a Chassemort to hunt the Mortalities. I will always return to my master, and when lacking one, shall find my way to another.¡± I pondered those words for a moment. The Lost Deaths appeared bound to a single master until their death. They only passed on to me after Henry¡¯s demise. It didn¡¯t take me long to figure out a likely sequence of events. Henry had hunted creatures like this Coach-Eater and then he attracted their worshipers¡¯ attention. They attacked his library with a handful of Mortalities, set it ablaze, and somehow drove the man insane. A demented, mentally-disturbed patient could not harm them; and since his death would lead to his vigil passing on to someone else, it was much easier for them to simply leave the man alive under close supervision. The cult¡¯s surveillance of Henry had likely grown lax after eighteen years of internment, but the Coach-Eater¡¯s demise suddenly jolted them back into activity. They must have unearthed Nelson¡¯s corpse to confirm he was dead, and likely murdered Devereaux when he dug too deep. I worried about this society¡¯s reach. If they were willing to murder investigators and brazenly rob graves, then they were capable of anything. They would investigate the asylum and anyone Henry had been in contact with during his internment. I would have to lay low and be careful. Maybe even leave Paris altogether. ¡°Who created you?¡± I asked the Lost Deaths. ¡°Who had the power to create you?¡± ¡°You will see them during the rite.¡± Them. Somehow that word sent chills down my spine. If the book required that I see its creators, then¡­ then it meant I would likely not believe its words otherwise. Another question hung on my mind since I had seen those poor souls inside the Coach-Eater¡¯s gullet, all those corpses crushed by hungry wheels and reaching out to me with empty black eyes. My body would have joined them had I failed, but I wasn¡¯t sure anything of the people they had once been remained within those horrors. Still, enough humanity remained in them that they could feel pain at least. ¡°Then answer this, if you can,¡± I wrote down. ¡°What is on the other side of death? What happens to men after death? Hell¡¯s torture? Heaven? Another life? Or one of those things¡¯ gullets?¡± The book absorbed my words into its pale pages, and left them blank for a moment as it considered my questions. Then the answer came on pale red ink, blunt and unambiguous. ¡°There is no other side, master,¡± it said. ¡°This life of yours is all there is.¡± 6: Dum Spiro Spero
The ingredient for a Philosopher¡¯s Stone proved simple enough: blood. The Coach-Eater¡¯s blood was the keystone, but the Lost Deaths also had me extract samples from various patients at the asylum. Agn¨¨s had been among them. Years of internment had left her gaunt and pale, but she still possessed a certain beauty, with auburn hair the color of the same fire that slew her brother. I will never forget the look she sent me upon spotting the necrosis marks on my arms. That face of recognition, laced with a dash of sharp fear. ¡°You believe me now,¡± she had said. ¡°Yes, I do,¡± I remember replying as I took a blood sample from her; officially to check on her health. ¡°I will get you out of here one day.¡± I didn¡¯t think she cared too much about the last part. She simply felt relieved that someone out there didn¡¯t think she was mad. Agn¨¨s had been involved in multiple cases of spontaneous human combustion, one of which caused her brother¡¯s death and the other her fianc¨¦. She always maintained the same story: that a ghost had set them on fire. Her words had earned her an indefinite stay in Portenoire under suspicions of arson, but I now knew that she was a victim rather than a perpetrator. A Mortality had haunted her steps since childhood. Perhaps it would return for her one day to finish the job that it couldn¡¯t complete all those years back. Part of me hoped it did, even if its ability and willingness to burn people alive in broad daylight meant it was likely much more dangerous than the Coach-Eater had been. I would ensure that the asylum became its tomb one way or another. The Mortalities had won many battles, but now I knew there was a war. Once I¡¯d collected all the blood samples that the Lost Deaths required, I returned to my room and then mixed them with the Coach-Eater¡¯s fluids. Black and red merged into a dark and murky substance darker than petroleum and so cold to the touch I could feel chills through the glass. Every fiber of my being told me not to drink this, like an old animal instinct warning me against poison. The Lost Deaths informed me that the blood of men came in various types and variations, and that recombining them would let me tap into the very essence of life and death. Ingesting this potion would refine my body and let me access true magic, or so it said¡­ at a cost. ¡°Beware that there is no turning back after this,¡± the book warned me. ¡°With power comes enemies. The Mortalities and their servants are relentless. They will hunt you down as much as you hunt them, and you shall never find rest.¡± ¡°Not unless I slay them all first,¡± I replied. ¡°Yes,¡± the Lost Deaths confirmed. ¡°What you will see next is a truth you shall never forget. Not all are strong-willed enough to accept it. Many of my would-be masters went mad or died from shock.¡± I didn¡¯t care, not since it told me what awaited me after death. I would do anything to slay the Mortalities and delay my death one more day. Anything to avoid the¡­ the darkness. ¡°What will I see?¡± I asked. ¡°The Strangers who created me. The origin. The war.¡± So cryptic, and yet so ominous. I sat on my bed, but did not immediately drink the vial. I first flipped through the Lost Deaths¡¯ entries on defeated Mortalities until I reached the gallery¡¯s end and read its latest addition. The Coach-Eater¡¯s illustration faced me with a new set of text.
The Coach-Eater Death by carriages, a minor Mortality in the service of the Hecatomb of Misfortune, which delighted in crushing men beneath its wheels. Incinerated by Laurent Valmore with Greek Fire in Paris, June 3rd, 1889.
So reassured, I smiled and ingested it all in one stroke. I did not hesitate; not even for a second. A terrible cold seized me the moment the substance touched my tongue. Pain surged from my necrosis patches, sharper than ever. A terrible chill traveled through my body and froze the blood within my veins. The icy grasp of death had closed around my heart. I barely remembered falling onto my bed before darkness seized my vision. A terrible and primeval fear seized me as my body went numb, leaving my limbs heavier than stone and smothering my breath. The first and greatest terror had come. My soul drowned in cold tar and pitch blackness, deep into an abyss that would devour me until nothing remained. Panic seized my addled mind. Had the Lost Deaths lied to me? Was this all a trick? Was this¡­ the end? Then I saw them. The countless faces of death staring at me with malice and hunger. I saw a grinning flame that offered no comfort, only ashes. I walked a hell of a Valhalla where corpses fought a war of annihilation, and heard the whispers of that frightful voice that advised me to slit my own throat. I felt the putrid kiss of plagues that boiled my skin and rotted my blood while I yet lived. I saw the deaths that were, and those unborn. I fled from a giant, monstrous vehicle of steel rising from the land of America, which would one day pave the roads of the world with blood. I escaped machines commanded by no man, and burned in a mushroom-shaped light. I saw the shadow of the Hecatombs and the lesser demises that served them. More than that, I saw the dark. I saw the final end which the Mortalities all shepherded us towards, the cold and silent end of a finite universe, without end nor beginning. I saw true blackness. I saw the enemy. But then came the light splitting the coin of existence. The grip of death loosened on me and dragged me away from its waiting jaws. I was welcomed back on the other side of the war, and gazed upon our origin.A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation. I saw the Strangers. I behold the host of life, our forefathers and future, and met with the true masters of reality. I walked on living planets of pulsating flesh whose moons were seeds waiting to bloom. I dined in the halls of the Silent King, amidst the ruins of civilizations which it collected. I stepped inside the Dream of Kazat where all nightmares went to rest. I gazed upon the Web of Life that stretched across the cosmos and connected us all, all the way back to the impossible day when the first bacteria came to be under the light of distant stars. More than that, I saw what the Lost Deaths truly looked like; an ancient thing of names and eyes and tentacles, as old as the first Mortality. I understood its nature at last: that of a weapon of life that could not be sealed nor contained, that changed forms and shapes with each era and civilization. It was one of many such tools that the Strangers spread across the infinity, my own world included, waiting for those ready and willing to take up the fight. There were other Chassemorts on Earth, soldiers waging a war that spanned all of space and time. And I now stood among their numbers.
When I awoke again with a clear yet shaken mind, my wounds had healed. The necrosis and burns were gone, along with the cut. When I used a knife to slash across my hand, I watched the skin knit itself back together in seconds. I looked the same on the outside, and I knew that would not change; not unless I chose to. I had become more aware of my body than ever before. I could feel my blood coursing through every inch of flesh. I heard the song of my organs to which I was once deaf to. My senses were sharper than knives and my bones stronger than steel. I would not grow old. I would walk this world untouched by time and age¡¯s grasp. But I could still die. I could feel the cloud of death hovering over me, like a silent promise. I sensed the great malevolent force of which the Mortalities were mere incarnations everywhere around me, waiting, hating. Violence, fire, despair¡­ it had so many tools to slay me with even with the gifts I¡¯d obtained from my benefactors. I¡¯ve met many people who thought death was an inevitable part of life, but I now knew otherwise. Death wasn¡¯t a law of the universe; it was its undying enemy, a creeping cold that shepherded all things toward the silent oblivion which it craved. It offered no comfort, no promise of an after, only the end. Only when all worlds became silent, only when the last star was extinguished and the cosmos returned to eternal darkness, would it finally be satisfied. Maupassant wrote that death was only the certainty in life. He was wrong; I now knew that death could be fought, even slain¡­ but in my currently imperfect state, one of the Mortalities would eventually overcome me. I had taken the first step on a long journey towards immortality, yet many ordeals still awaited me. The Lost Deaths would guide me, teach me spells from the Web of Life, and perfect me until I became as imperishable as a true Philosopher¡¯s Stone. Everyone in Paris was abuzz with talks of Boulangisme and socialist gatherings, and I couldn¡¯t care less anymore. I alone knew that there had only been one war waged since the beginning of time, only one conflict worth fighting: the Great War between Life and Death. I had seen our origin. The beginning. The same way all Mortalities were emanations of the same primeval hunger, we were only branches of a great superorganism called Life, whose purpose was only to spread and survive. A single human was no more important in the great scheme of things than a single cell; yet each of us played a vital role in its continued existence. I had seen the enemy too. The dispenser of endings. So many thought they could bargain with death or lessen its threat, that it was only a door leading to heaven or a new life rather than our first and final fear. I assumed the Ankous believed that they could appease this great hunger. They were all wrong. Death could not be bargained with, because it was never alive in the first place, let alone human. Its hate could not be quelled. It would come for all without mercy or compassion. It could only be delayed, fought, or surrendered to. The Lost Deaths warned me that seeing the truth might turn me as insane as the inmates I watched over, but my mind had never been clearer. I knew what I had to. What I was born to do. So many philosophers thought about the meaning of life. They overthought it all. Existence was meaning in itself, and Death its negation. It was up to me to change the world. The government and the Bureau clearly knew something, but they chose lies and suppression over carrying on the fight. That duty now fell to me. It didn¡¯t matter how long it would take, or the sacrifices required. I would slay the Mortalities one after another, gaze into the abyss of sorcery with my book¡¯s guidance, and rise ever higher to ascend to the Strangers. Immortality would be within mankind¡¯s grasp and all the deaths lost to time one day, with a book¡¯s gallery their final legacy. I would never die. I refused to die. I was a Chassemort, and I had a hunt tonight.
An Hunt''s End
Closing Words This story is dedicated to my stepmother Dominique, whom I loathed but who did not deserve to die like she did. I was at an author¡¯s retreat last year when I learned of her demise. Truth be told, it did not surprise nor sadden me. She had been struggling with smoke-induced cancer for years, but stubbornly continued to smoke while in chemo. She was a cruel and bitter woman who treated my father terribly, and I never understood why he stayed with her after separating from my mother; besides perhaps fear of loneliness. But when I called him to offer my condolences and reassure him, he told me how she died. He told me of the long nights of suffering and delirium, the fear, and that short yet fatal moment when she simply ceased to be; and for all of the disdain I held for that woman, I couldn¡¯t help but feel both sympathy and utter terror for what she went through. One moment she was here, and then she was gone. Sixty years of existence snuffed out like candlelight. I¡¯m going on thirty, and while I¡¯m still rather young by human standards, 2024 was the first year when I first started truly dwelling on my mortality. My stepmother died; half of the people in my life over sixty are struggling with cancer or disease; a fellow author in my field perished recently, far too early. All these little things combined cast a heavy cloud on the second half of the year for me. Lovecraft said that fear of the unknown was the primal fear of man, and I believe he was right. It¡¯s not death that we truly fear, but the unknown that follows. Some of my friends believe that death is part of life, or simply the start of another life, but their words always offered me cold comfort. No matter how hard I try, I cannot help but see death as something cruel and horrible; our first and greatest terror. It was during that time that the idea of the Mortalities came to be; reapers that weren¡¯t servants of a cosmic order nor anthropomorphized entities, but monsters that loathed life. I believe there is something innately terrifying in an enemy that cannot be reasoned with, because there is nothing reasonable about them. You can¡¯t bargain with a meteor on its way to crash onto the earth or an earthquake. Senselessness is the greatest form of cruelty. So¡­ the idea of The Lost Deaths was present in my mind for a while and it resonated with me, but I decided against writing it as a serial after my darker stories struggled on Amazon. A Gaslamp Dark Fantasy Horror story about killing deaths is simply too niche. I had to professionally focus on more marketable stories for financial reasons (that Perfect Run game in development doesn¡¯t pay for itself yet) and wished to return to more lighter stuff anyway. Nevertheless, the idea simply wouldn¡¯t leave me. I had to write down these intrusive thoughts somehow. The Royal Road Magazine Prompt, which echoed very much with this story idea, inspired me to at least try writing it as a short story. It has been a pleasant experience (the story flowed out of my head in a handful of days) and I would say The Lost Deaths probably rank high among my other tales in terms of quality. Long-time readers will also notice some winks and references to my Underland series, though those are left open to interpretation. In any case, I hope you¡¯ve enjoyed reading this novella as much as I enjoyed writing it, and that it gave you much to think about. I''m going to focus on Dungeon Wreckers/Blood & Fur/Board & Conquest (with Dungeon Wreckers hitting Royal Road next week normally), but I don¡¯t exclude writing more tales in this universe one day. So long as I breathe, I hope, as they say. Best regards, Voidy.