Chapter 1: One End of the Scalpel

The body’s skin had turned from its supple peach tones to the dull gray of suspended decay. Its inhabitant had long since left the carcass that laid upon the cold metal slab of Edwina’s workspace, three large stab wounds in its side. The coroner didn’t treat the body as just a dead thing, however. To her it was still very much alive and, even in its gray still state, it had so much to tell her. So many stories written upon its skin. Layer after layer of life it possessed, ready for her to uncover. Each wound a gaping canyon in the body, somehow looking more menacing after having been cleaned of any blood and debris. To document and retell. However, she was only to facilitate the telling of one story. The one where they died.

The small morgue was a place of sterilized mourning. Smooth stone floors echoed the subtle shifting steps of her shoes and the rickety wheels of the metal cart that made her workstation. Metal implements laid out on top of the Voile enchantment that pulled contaminants from their surfaces. A handy and low-cost Fabric enchantment used in medical facilities. Her metal tools looked almost torturous under the flicker of the gas lamp light.

They had delivered the body late the night before. A constable had called her flat to let her know, but he hadn’t reached her there. So, he phoned the card club instead. Calling the woman from her revelries to attend to the deceased vagrant.

The sound of her fountain pen upon paper scratched her ears as it echoed off her hollow workroom, where the sounds of the dead prevailed. Edwina never heard joyfulness in this room, only the mournful wails of those who came to identify their loved ones. The woman was averse to forms of physical contact with strangers, but Edwina had held a sobbing widow on a number of occasions. Her own comfort didn’t matter much to her, not when the person who was clinging to her lab coat was experiencing the most uncomfortable moment of their lives.

Edwina continued with her initial visual examination, making untidy notes on her report. She examined the body with a keen gaze. The lines on her forehead scrunched into a curious expression. There, on the body’s chest, lying above the heart, in a perfect square, was a papery film lifting off the body’s surface, like sunburned skin.

Not everyone could see an active Voile augmentation or enchantment thrum with their subtle power like Edwina could. This was one designed to be undetectable, it was only her unique ocular ability that she could even see it was there. This sort of attention to the cosmetic effect of a medical Voile augmentation was highly advanced for a vagrant to have one installed on his chest. A heart augmentation, nonetheless, the sigils required to guide the Voile usage would be extensive.

Edwina put down her clipboard and picked up the file for the deceased. She didn’t remember a Voile augment having been in his medical reports. She tapped the small box with her pointer finger in confirmation, and a sigh escaped her lips. This would mean more paperwork, a lot of it.

Perhaps she could have Benton do it? She considered that, then let out another sigh as she realized the time. Benton was late. Again.

There, beneath the autopsy report, was the form for Benton’s dismissal as her student assistant. She felt awful about it. Benton wasn’t a bad student. The young man was very bright, with uncanny observational skills. Often, he would have a solution ready before even Edwina could. But even with all his interest and potential, he didn’t care about the job. He constantly arrived late, did things halfway, and filled out reports so poorly that Edwina had to file amended forms on more than one occasion. Though, none of these offenses were egregious enough for immediate dismissal. When she needed him most, he had always performed in an exemplary manner.

Benton could have had a promising career, if he hadn’t been so bent on ruining things just to get back at his father. Arthur Wiles. The Wiles family was one of the wealthiest families in Ebonport. They were legacy graduates from—and large donors to—the prestigious school of Wraithmire University. Edwina’s alma mater.

Benton may have been testing her. Wanting to see how far he could push until she dismissed him. To see if she would even risk it. Perhaps he wanted someone to finally tell him no. Tell him he couldn’t get away with everything. Edwina, though, didn’t believe him to be so ignorant. She had seen his intelligence firsthand, and every shortcoming had been deliberate. His natural work ethic was very good, and she would, of course, be open to having him study under her again. After he corrected his course.

They would put this autopsy on hold until she was able to get some answers on what kind of Voile augmentation was protruding from the dead man’s chest. Edwina picked up the phone and asked the switchboard operator to connect her to the local Fabrication office. Her mind began going through its mental checklist on the procedure for undocumented Voile augmentations, while her eyes narrowed in on an off-center structural line on the wall, losing herself to a thoughtless daydream until her vision unfocused. The voice on the other end brought her back.

“Karie, it’s Edwina Sharp from the coroner’s office.” She pulled out her professional voice from the back of her throat, shifting from a slouch to an upright stance. “I have an unregistered Voile augmentation on an ‘Adam O’Hare’ here. He was brought in last night. He was found in Sag Alley, known vagrant.”

Edwina listened to the voice on the other end of the receiver scale up in surprise. Voile augmentations were expensive. They were not something a person of little money would—or even could—get their hands on. Voile was fragile and, depending on the complexities of the sigil, it would burn off in a matter of days or months. The primary use of long-term Voile augments required monthly monitoring and refreshing using more layers of stitched Voile to keep them working.

“Heart.” She answered the question and shifted to lean on the wall. The coroner continued to relay several clear, albeit short, answers for Karie to fill out on her own set of paperwork. “It seems stable for now. It should be fine to wait a day. I’ll call you back if anything changes.”

Edwina hung up the receiver just as the doors swung open with a burst that only a youthful male that was running late to work would force through its hinges. Benton wasn’t a quiet person. The young man was a boisterous socialite, relaying his exciting weekends at every opportunity. They were always filled with trips to the countryside to go hunting, large parties that gleamed of sparkling dresses and equally sparkling wine from the family vineyard. Benton was rich in experience and relished telling Edwina all about every succulent detail. It didn’t matter that Edwina was ten years his senior and his superior, she couldn’t manage to keep him on task. She was knowledgeable in her field, but that experience didn’t translate into the teaching profession.

Her office often lacked a student assistant. It was small, and in Millbrook. A rural town on the outskirts of Ebonport—the capital city—making it the furthest commute for anyone who traveled there from the university. It was a last resort placement for overflow students. Benton picked it first for it’s distance away from his father’s prying eyes. When she was a student, she’d never minded the daily train ride. It was an hour-long commute where she could play cards with other passengers. Although, after she had bled the daily riders of their extra gambling cash, she resorted to silently reading and studying until she found a fresh batch of people to play with.

When she made the permanent move to Millbrook, she did find a proper card club, instead of gambling at various dorm parties. Edwina had always expected that one day she would grow out of the practice. A woman of her age, with a steady job, unmarried, and childless, she made more than enough to support herself. However, nothing precluded her from continuing the hobby. On most days after work, she would go down to the card club and her excess funds would lie scattered among stacks of chips, all being relentlessly fiddled with as a dealer shuffled cards over the felt table. She enjoyed it.

“Sorry I’m late.” Benton said breathlessly as he wriggled his arm through the sleeve of his lab coat. It was giving him a fit, static twisting the fabric and forcing him to nearly punch his way through, causing him to violently curse words Edwina had never heard him utter before.

Something was off today.

The young man had dark brown hair that he styled back, out of his face. He was always clean-cut and smelled of fresh aftershave. He rigorously washed, pressed, and kept his clothes spotless. Today, however, he looked disheveled. His hair was greasy and loose strands hung out of place. He wore a wrinkled shirt, as if he had slept in it. He was off balance, not the poise of a boy classically trained in dance and posture. Edwina tried not to react to the curses, she just didn’t want to deal with it. Not with his impending dismissal.

“Are you? I could have sworn a ‘Benton’ had arrived earlier today,” She looked up with a wry grin at the skeleton representation that stood in the corner of the room adorned with Benton’s hat and coat he left at the office the night before. “opening up the office, finishing the morning reports. Preparing the slab, sanitizing the equipment. He even staged the body that came in last night and washed and prepared it.” Her tone remained even as she tried to bring levity to the situation, her eyes tilted up in a knowing look. He responded to the sarcasm with a mock chuckle as he snatched his hat off the figure. “Doesn’t matter now, the body is going back in the fridge. He has an unregistered Voile augmentation. Let’s see if it’s still active, get the living ink, we’ll document then tag him and put him in slot four.”

Living ink would revitalize the dead man’s inkwell, the phenomenon that everyone had. Black inky sigils that rippled beneath the skin on one’s forearm that gave information about one’s state of being. Current health, heart rate, differing levels of strength, mental state, and mental fortitude.

She did her best to keep an eye on him but not lead on to the fact she was observing his subtle, but odd behavior. He sprang into action, spinning around dramatically to find something. Edwina jumped as Benton’s motions clattering a workstation to the ground and more curses burst from the boys mouth. Metal implements skidding across the floor. Her heart thumped at the sudden scare, and she moved to make sure Benton hadn’t hurt himself.

“I’m fine, don't worry about it.” He said in an abrupt tone. They both knelt down and began picking up the scattered equipment. Edwina paused to watch him for a moment. His unsteady hands and shaky fingers caught Edwina’s perceptive eye. She swallowed back her hesitations.

“Benton, are you well?” She lowered her tone to indicate her seriousness. He sputtered off that he was fine and turned his gaze away so she couldn’t see. “Benton, show me your arm.”

Her request made the boy jump away from her, shouting that he was fine. Punctuating his words with definite force. He pulled his sleeve down to hide his forearm. Edwina needed to see the sigils that churned in black veins beneath his skin. As she was his superior and there was suspicion of a breach in Benton’s contract by coming to work drunk then she had the right to demand to see it.

“I’ll be fine. I just had too much to drink last night, that’s all. It was my flat mate’s birthday, and he fancies the lounge on Carver?” He stepped back. “More, he fancies the waitresses there. You know the ones. They wear those frilly little skirts that have a heart cutout over their bum.”

He walked backwards until he bumped into the countertop. Edwina closed in and looked at his eyes. His pupils churned in an unnatural, shattered pattern.

Her stomach sank.

Edwina grabbed his arm and focused on the sigils. The ink was sluggish as it linked beneath his skin. Instead of the steady flow like thick water, it crawled and scraped like sand. It took form in the jagged sigil, frightfully angular in shape. The symbols spelled out the debuff of his recent drug use.

“You were smoking Fabric Shreds?” Edwina’s disbelief in his betrayal bubbled up from her core and lodged itself into her throat. Heat radiated from her face enough that it nearly fogged her glasses. She was uncomfortable with conflict; she always made the worst decisions when trying to handle it. She preferred to work alone… in a morgue… with the dead. Her fingers gripped the young man enough to bulge the skin whitening her grip on him. “Do you understand how dangerous that is? You could have gotten hurt. You do realize I have to report this. Benton, you are a promising young man, and I have forgiven a lot of things from you—but this…” She trailed off. Her chest was thumping wildly as the implications arose in her mind.

“It was once. It was my mate’s birthday, what was I supposed to say?” He jerked his arm away from her grip. The young man was stronger than her, she didn’t need to see her strength sigil falter to tell her that. “You can’t report this. My father wouldn’t allow it.”

Edwina gaped. He never relied on his father’s standing to get out of things. It was true, he could, but the young man hated his father. It was a silent understanding he would just as soon chew his own thumb off before he would rely on his father’s name.

“I am still the chief coroner here, Mr. Wiles. My signature is no smaller than that of your father’s. I’m sorry, but I cannot have this type of behavior in my lab.” Edwina stated firmly with a false bravado. In truth, her innards were trembling to the point she noted where the waste bin was in case she became sick.

“No! You won’t! Do you have any idea what you’re doing?” His voice became elevated and irrational, bellowing over the surfaces of the hollow room. Benton lifted and threw one of the stocked and upright workstations. Her tools echoed their prostrate positions, metal ringing long after they hit the cold hard ground causing Edwina to gasp and tense. She brought her arms to her center.

He stalked the end of the room with violent shudders coursing through his limbs. Whatever walked into her lab this morning was not Benton. This man was feral, angry, so full of aggression it was boiling out of him in invisible fumes. He felt twisted somehow. Like a distorted image in a broken mirror.

Edwina attributed the behavior to Shreds. She had never autopsied a Shreds user before. Even among those with wealth, it was nearly unheard of. Shreds wasn’t an enjoyable drug as far as she knew. Processed Voile could do so much more to stimulate the senses. Smoking Shreds was like burning money and eating the ash.

He paced in front of the threshold to the door out. There was an exit behind her, but that door remained locked, and her keys were in her locker. Edwina didn’t know what to do next. Her stomach twisted so hard she felt like she had lost a few inches sucking in her stomach. He wouldn’t leave and as the minutes—or really seconds—continued to tick by, he grew more unpredictable, angrily muttering to himself, and slamming spare items against the floor, battering cupboard doors. She couldn’t call for help, nor was she confident enough to confront him.

“Benton, it’s alright. We’ll talk later about all this. You should go home, let the Shreds filter out of your system. I’ll give you the week off. Go rest.” She spoke in a calm, but shaky voice. How she wished for a better mediator to handle the situation. The dealer at a card table would call over a bouncer to remove the belligerent drunk. Some other form of authority to take the reins.

There was no one else now. Just her and an irrational Benton. She shifted herself to an untouched workbench.

“Benton?”

“Shut up!” He screamed at an alarming level and turned his body aggressively. Edwina sucked in a scream.

Her mind wasn’t quite processing the events taking place, but her body was reacting. She grabbed a scalpel and held it straight out towards the boy. She controlled her breath and did her best to school her face.

“Go home, Benton.” She commanded. Edwina wouldn’t be able to overpower him, but the implement in her hand could do serious damage in the process. She didn’t expect to beat him in a fight, but she hoped that the promise of harm would dissuade Benton from going after her. The fact she even thought this boy would even think of going after her filled her with shame. Other than his academic failings, he had never indicated he would resort to something like this.

He wasn’t a bad person. This wasn’t Benton.

Then he was gone. Stomping out through the doorway, leaving Edwina still holding the scalpel. She squealed as the phone rang, dropping the metal tool. The coroner gathered herself and rushed to the wall that held the phone. She pulled the earpiece off.

“Yes?” She heard Karie’s voice come over the earpiece. “Yes, thank you Karie.— Tomorrow will be fine.— Afternoon? Yes, I’ll be here all day.— Oh?—Oh no I’m fine, just feeling a little out of sorts, I think I’ll go home early today.— Thank you Karie.— Yes, you too.— Bye.”

Edwina looked over the ruins of her lab. She decided she would go to the card club early tonight.