Eldritch Exorcist

I sat a bit closer to the man. "You see, they say that the very procedure that I'm about to perform on you is the very precursor of lobotomy."

I showed him the two bottles. "Those are the awakened-slumber potion and the dollar-store version of a truth serum. Normally, a real truth serum is really expensive, but this is the cheaper version as, no offense, I don't want to spend that much on you." I gave him an apologetic smile.

"That is if I could get my hands on real truth serum. Anyway, this serum turns off the part of your brain that is responsible for imagination. Basically once it starts to work you can't make shit up. There is an obvious flaw, of course. You can just stay silent."

I raised the second bottle.

"Now, this is how we fix this problem. This one puts a person into a sleep-like state where they will answer everything on instinct. So if they're given separately, and your instinct is to lie, you will tell a lie, but when you combine the two," I raised both bottles and shook them in front of the man.

"Well, you get quite close to the real truth serum's effect. There is an issue, though. Those two potions have difficulty crossing the blood-brain barrier and must be delivered to a particular part of the brain. And this is where this comes in." I showed the pick. It was hollow inside, allowing a needle to pass through.

"It is said that in the past, some doctors witnessed this procedure, and after getting the pick to the eye, the patient started to answer questions calmly and without trouble. Seeing this, the doctor thought he had witnessed a miraculous cure for a mental illness. Moron ended up selling the idea as a medical procedure not understanding its true nature."

Throughout the whole story, I could see the fear grow in the man's eyes. That was the point of the monologue. The potions were not all-powerful, and a determined mind could resist them. So a scared mind was much more preferable. So, even if he did not believe in the serum, all he had to do was believe that I was crazy enough to do as I said.

Sadly, I could not just read the man's memories. While I was proficient with the mind, I was not a ghost or an empath, so accessing someone's memories beyond surface thoughts was not possible, not without a lot of work and costly preparations, at least.

I was also hoping that maybe it would scare him enough to tell me what I wanted to know without the need for potions, as they also cost quite a bit. I made my way behind the man, wrapped my arm around his head, and, with the other arm, put the pick close to his right eye.

"You might feel a slight pinch," I whispered into his ear.

"Wait, wait, wait. Look, I'll talk, but I don't know much." He shouted, and I relaxed my arm a bit and lowered the pick.

"That's hard to believe. I imagine you have worked in this field for quite some time, so I assume you know some of the inner workings of the business. Also, you should have some dirt on the company in case you need to make a deal with the Department of Justice."

I raised the pick back again halfway to his eye.

"What I'm interested in is the recent kidnapping of the ES Electric CEO's daughter. And, no offense, but I would prefer you give me information I can fact-check in a short time, as you are not the trustworthy sort."

"Ok, ok. Look, I don't know much. But I'll talk."

I would be surprised if he were loyal enough to die for his employer.

"Good choice!" I said happily, inside, celebrating the money saved.

"I don't know who did the kidnapping job, I swear. It was some other team. But I have a buddy in the smuggling business. He said he got a really rich client right after they did the job. The client had him transport a package from the US. The package was just one large bag, but the client rented the entire plane. And well, the package moved…"

"That buddy of yours got a name?"

"I have a folder on my PC where I keep the dirt I know for a deal when I want to leave the business. The description of the smuggling operation used by my employer is in there. You let me go, and I'll give you the password once I'm out and alive," The man tried to bargain.

"You know I can't let you live."

"Then what is the point of giving you the password?" He asked with anger.

"Quick, painless death," as if it were obvious.

"Fuck you! I will bet you that once that serum of yours doesn't do anything, you psycho, you will be left on ice, with wasted time and no information. Look, you let me go, I'll give you the password. I get my stuff and disappear, and you get what you want. That's a good deal."

"Unless you screw me over and give me a code that cleans your PC when inputted, or informs someone about the breach," I countered.

"Look, dude. I don't know who you are or why you're doing this. But I have no interest in having someone like you looking for me for revenge."

I took a moment to consider the offer. Of course, letting the guy live was out of the question, but getting information that way might be better than the pick-in-the-eye option.

"Hey, I'm not the monster you think I am. You don't always have a choice about what you do in life, you know?" The man tried to keep eye contact to look sincere but failed, choosing to look down in supposed guilt.

Trying to humanize himself and establish some connection. Not bad.

"When I got into the business, originally, I did some small stuff, you know, getting gang debts and protection money. I never wanted to hurt anyone. I just wanted to make some money to live a good life and pay for myself and my loved ones." He raised his eyes to watch my reaction.

"But then, when you join that world, it's like it becomes a part of you, like it seeps into your soul. All the dirty cops, all the bought politicians, all that dirt. And like that, I forgot that there was an alternative. I never wanted to be a murderer, and I'm not some crazed killer. I just want a better life, so long as I get a chance from you, I will give you what you want and use it as an opportunity to change. To leave this life behind."

He then looked in front of him, his eyes losing focus and even getting a bit teary, for once looking like it wasn't all an act.

"I think I lost myself along the way. But I can change for the better. No, I want to change for the better. You know. That was not the true me. The burden of knowing changed who I was."

A spark of hope appeared on the man's face as he saw me frozen in place.

The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

"You want to preach to me about the burden of knowledge?" I barked at him. He now realized that his choice of words was not the best for some reason. I rarely got angry, but now I could feel some heat rise in my chest. I bent down over the man, locking my eyes with his.

"You cannot even begin to understand what true knowledge can do to you. There are texts so blasphemous that reading them will leave you a different man. The madness hidden in the pages of the dreaded Necronomicon is enough to leave some catatonic, their minds unable to comprehend the horror of the unknowable. There are Gods and beings whose mere sight will rip you apart. And with all that which was shown to me I still have some fucking lines I don't cross. I mean, children killed alongside their parents for some money because you found out politicians are bought? What are you, fucking stupid? It takes 15 minutes of research to figure out that politicians are bought. Don't give me your pathetic excuses." I saw that my little speech made him think of me as only crazier.

Not like I could blame the man. To him, I probably looked like a complete lunatic. "Ok, let's go with the deal. I will knock you out and leave you on some random street with a phone and a way of contacting me. Once you wake up, you will send me the password." I leaned in close. "And if I even suspect that you were trying to pull something, I will make you wish you had chosen the quick death option. Do you understand?"

All I got back in return was a mechanical nod of his head. That was good enough for me. I moved behind him and used a simple mental attack to knock him out. He was frightened and disoriented, so it was quick and easy.

Once the man was out, I put my hand on the back of his head. The back of my hand had a tattoo of a withered tree alongside a couple of arcane sigils. I started moving my mana, and after some hand gestures, I used the symbol to curse the man.

Withering curse.

I anchored it to his body. It was easy since there was not an ounce of magic in him to resist the spell. He would feel more and more tired until he would just slowly wither away over the next two days.

Once I was done, I took a deep breath and sat back down in front of the now-unconscious man. The basement belonged to the haunted house with the vein, turned into an interrogation room with a couple of silencing runes.

I deactivated the sound seal to get rid of the unnatural silence hanging in the air. As I did, the natural nocturnal song of night critters scurrying about their business made its way inside. It was relaxing in a way.

I closed my eyes and took a second to go through my feelings, just as my father taught me. Check for human emotions when you feel disconnected. And I just killed a man, not in this very second, for now he was still breathing, but there was no difference. I had signed his death sentence.

The previous case of scamming an old woman was easy. Guilt and shame should have been present, but it is much more complicated here.

What should I feel?

All that was present was self-satisfaction over a relatively easy job that went according to my plan. So, what was I missing? Guilt over killing another human? But he was a murderer with innocent families on his conscience. I'm sure many would congratulate and even praise me for my actions.

On the other side, there were also those who would argue the sanctity of life, that nothing justifies killing. So, which side was the one on the right? Was there even one? I was honestly more prone to the first option. The sanctity of life group was hard to understand.

Many centered their moral compass around the idea of not knowing, assuming there is some special meaning to life, and just going with it. Others assumed that if they were sinners committing acts of evil and injustice, some divine punishment would come sooner or later.

Almost all of the people from the sanctity of life group subscribe to the idea of heaven and hell, being rewarded or punished for their actions on earth. Even non-believers considered the idea of being judged for their doings in life once gone.

But I did not have the privilege of uncertainty. I knew exactly what would happen to my soul once my body was dead. I knew that no matter how many I killed, no punishment would come in the afterlife. There would be no afterlife, not for me, at least.

The sanctity and unique meaning of life were also lost on me. The creation process of humans was explained to me, a recipe for a human written like a cookbook for the Gods in the pages of the Necronomicon.

Knowledge like that tends to wipe much of the empathy and meaning to existence, turning the miracle of life into an outcome of ingredients put together. Sadly, the knowledge usually left behind the need for human connection and understanding, without the courtesy of erasing those along with the rest of empathy.

Honestly, nihilism was an easy and comfortable way of looking at it. It would be so easy to say it was all worthless, start reading Nietzsche, and pretend I was some enlightened skeptic. But I knew it was a shortcut to nothing. Thinking like that, combined with the power to command reality, would turn you into a monster. With no friends and surrounded by enemies, alone, talking to some stuffed severed head to satisfy the human need for companionship.

So, I was left with a moral compass composed of written rules left by my family. It's good because the rules say it's good. It's bad because they say it's bad. It makes the burden of knowing a bit lighter. The rules had worked well for my family for so long, so I should follow them. That was all there was to it. Assigning as much worth to human life as you feel is deserved was part of the creed. So I could not say he was meaningless and be done with it.

So what did the rules say in this case? 'Close your heart to the enemy, do not show mercy you would not be afforded yourself,' so guilt was out of the running.

But he was only in my way because of the knowledge he had that I needed. He was not someone who hated me initially or tried to attack me, so I should not celebrate his death either, at least on those grounds. God in the abyss, help me, this was complicated. I prefer to study magic rather than my own emotions.

I was starting to get a headache.

Maybe let's settle on an acknowledgement of taking another's life and a celebration of revenge for his victims.

Yes, I could go with those.

The acknowledgement was a bit of a cop-out. It was just a fancy way of saying indifference, and not really an emotion, but I was unsure what else to go with.

Guilt and sadness were against the rules.

Happiness or glee over killing someone who was not much of an enemy was a no-go, psychopathic kind of thing.

And the celebration of death on the ground that he was a murderer was the pot calling the kettle black, considering that technically, I just murdered him.

So, the celebration of taking out a bad guy by a common standard, a killer of innocence, which I was not, while helping myself at the same time, is what I will settle for. With acknowledgement, it is still killing.

Not the best conclusion, but that's all I got.

Happy with my feelings, or rather, lack thereof, settled, I loaded the guy into my car and left him on a sidewalk on my way home. An hour later, I received the address along with the password.

As I made my way to the place with the information, I could sense the direction of the curse as it worked its way through his body. There was no use lifting it after all that moral philosophy.

Getting the documents was relatively easy. It was a safehouse made in an apartment with some supplies, fake documents, a PC with info on the smuggler, and some more dirt. No tricks I could see for now. And my curse was moving further and further away, so even if he planned revenge, I doubt he would live long enough to go through with it.

The following two days were spent on observation and information extraction.

And a kidnapping and lobotomy later, I had the address in Brazil. The smuggler turned out to be a much more stubborn sort, not wanting to give away his contacts on the basis of some honor-among-thieves. But he was not immune to the dollar-store truth serum.

Brazil was not the best news, as doing business in the territory of other brokers required negotiations unless a permanent deal was struck. Brokers in the USA had a deal not to get in each other's way, but Brazil would require more time for business talks to get me permission. Time we did not have, as the CEO could sign the deal any day now.

So, a different approach was chosen. I would go in, arguing that the package being moved from the USA was technically not their business. Get the job done and ask for forgiveness later, using the girl's USA nationality as an argument. Q'Shar was not the happiest about it, but getting the land was a priority, so even he agreed.

From the info, it looked like the girl was moved to a Brazilian brothel. Probably kept in good condition for now and to be used to torment her father and for the sick satisfaction of the kidnapping's author in the future.

That was quite cruel, even by my standards. But thankfully, her prince on a white horse was coming. He just had to clean brain matter off a pick and would be on his way.