[For the Shadow Angel Detective Agency] "Leave your body Leave this body now"

[death_dawg]

A note has been posted on the bulletin board of the main room:

To the agents of the Shadow Angel Detective Agency:

Witnesses will be needed for a post-mortem examination. I will be the operating room of the basement lab, this afternoon.

JacquelIt's been a while since Jacquel has used his stills, and in some ways, it does not quite surprise him

Comments

[in_summer_leaf]

By the time Hisoka arrives, the autopsy is well under way. He would have liked to look down into Aramat's face and lay a hand on her cheek or forehead, and wish her well in the world to come -- wherever that might be. He doesn't fear the gore or the disassembly of the body -- in his second life, war had acquainted him with all of that, dead enemies, dead friends, and he can no longer react the way a normal person would, for good or ill. (If being a shinigami hadn't been enough.) But it would be an inconvenience to Jacquel, who is doing the work he is supposed to do. And Aramat is past caring

[death_dawg]

He'll likely arrive as Jacquel is weighing Aramat's viscerae on a laboratory scale, starting with her lungs, making a note via the dictaphone.

When Hisoka enters, he switches off the dictaphone, then replaces the lungs back in the dead woman's chest. "You must be the junior member of the Agency: you saw my notice on the messageboard?" he says.

[in_summer_leaf]

"I would be the youngest of the Shadow Angels," agrees Hisoka. "I forgot to mention that when we spoke through the aether. I saw your message, yes. Do you see any evidence of anything strange about Lady Aramat's death, other that she was killed by a man with steel claws?"

[death_dawg]

He looks to the body. "I would have to look deeper, but that can be arranged," he says, taking her heart from the metal basin in which it lies, then places it on the scale, carefully.

There might be a blink of an image: in his place a figure of a being with the head of a jackal, clad in a white kilt and sandals. And then, in his place is the dark figure in surgical garb is standing in it's place.

[in_summer_leaf]

Hisoka's psychic reception is still cranked up higher than usual after yesterday's communications, and the jackal-headed image hits him right between the eyes. "Did I just see your god-form?" he asks.

[death_dawg]

"You probably did: this place seems to like to pull at the edge of the mask I wear. Never happened in my world, and I'm glad for that. Would've been bad for business," he says, dryly. Then he turns back to the heart, noting the weight on the dictaphone, then gently taking up the heart. After a moment, he says, "Hmm.. There's a darkness attached to this heart that shouldn't be here, but it's not hers."

[in_summer_leaf]

"Not hers? Do you mean some form of possession?" Hisoka remembers a strange, dreamlike conversation he once had with her...

[death_dawg]

"It's not possession, not like I've seen it: no one was actually renting space in her soul, but someone definitely laid a claim on it," he says, setting the heart back in its basin. "Absentee landlord or something like that."

[in_summer_leaf]

"She spoke once of not always being able to choose not to kill," says Hisoka. "I assumed she was speaking of her former world, because she said that being at the Mansion had made her aware that killing people was wrong. And I guess that any violent deaths would have been noticed."

[death_dawg]

"Haven't noticed any particularly violent deaths, aside from that guy who got chewed to death by wolves when we had that trouble the end of May," he says, taking up the pancreas and weighing it, making a note via the dictaphone. "Nothing caused by humans, not till now."

[in_summer_leaf]

"I wonder what's going on," says Hisoka, in a quietly abstracted voice. "And...I didn't realize that anybody had actually died during the wolf attacks. Who was it?"

[death_dawg]

"A fellow named Cobb: he passed through my senses just long enough for me to see that he had died, but he woke up alive after a matter of hours," he says.

[in_summer_leaf]

An expression of unease crosses Hisoka's face. "Bet he was glad to find himself alive."

Would I have been glad, if it had been me? Or would I have been angry, because it was my time, and the Mansion interfered with my fate?

[death_dawg]

"I got a hint of relief as he passed, but it happened quick, even for my senses," he says, setting the pancreas back in it's basin. "I wouldn't call him suicidal, but he's likely the sort who wants to be rid of this place."

[in_summer_leaf]

[Moved left to avoid post crush.^^]

[in_summer_leaf]

"In that case, poor man, he's still here," says Hisoka, shaking his head. There's a wry little smile on his face. He glances at the pancreas, and a slightly brooding look takes the place of the smile. "If you should happen to learn anything new about that darkness around Aramat's heart, I'd like to hear about it," he says.