Chapter Text
The fire licked Carlisle’s feet. First, the heat had hit him as the fire consumed the offering of dried twigs, heavy logs, and scattered hay. Now the flames are on him, giving lashes of white, hot pain. Then the smell. The smell was almost sweet, calling back flashes of warm hearths and dark December evenings.The smell of cooking flesh.
The terror took hold as he felt the hems of his wool clothes catch. Smoke rose, blocking his vision, leaving only the roar of the fire surrounding him. His lungs burned as he thrashed against his bindings. The last remaining parts of his humanity escaped his body, carried up with the smoke and heat, leaving behind only pain.
Let it end. Let it end.
Suddenly, the roar of the fire was gone, and all that was left was screaming. A man’s voice. His voice?
Slowly, he felt the world around him return. Not flames under his feet, but a thick, plush carpet. Not a stake at his back, but the leather of the vintage lounge chair. His nerves still sizzled as he blinked against the light of his desk lamp. Next to it, the curved wooden clock read a little after two in the morning.
Centuries are long. And while the prospect of endless time for study had intoxicated him at first, the long hours began to wear. Then one day he noticed lost time, nothing much at first, an hour here, an hour there. This perplexed him, but the more he examined these moments, he found that what they had in common. If he stilled himself, quieted his mind, he could slip into a fugue state, sometimes passing hours without realizing.
But in that stillness, they could sometimes find him.
When Carlisle began to listen to the dead, he found that they were happy to be heard. But once he opened the door, he could not close it. When his mind sat idle, the ghosts of his past found their way through the cracks and crevices to where they could reach him, where they could share their pain. The pain he’d help inflict.
He tried to shake the memories, although they felt more like dreams at this point. He tried to tell himself that he was young and didn’t know any better. That the times were different and the veil between his world and the unnatural was thinner. He could trust his father, with his tattered copy of the Daemonologie under his arm, had believed. Even then, Carlisle knew he hadn’t.
Doubt had always plagued his mind. He played his part, he captured the accused, testified in their trials, and watched them dance at the end of a rope. He’d tell himself they were chasing a world where his people could be safe, but he couldn’t quite shake the idea that the only thing he was chasing was his father’s approval. He craved that moment his father would rest his outstretched arm on his shoulder and say, good work, son.
His father could captivate a crowd. He could bring them to their feet. And Carlisle was not immune to his father’s power. If he could please him, he could earn his respect; he would be worthy of the role he was born for. He had been destined to take over the flock, to protect them from the danger his father fought to erase. The danger Carlisle was never quite certain was actually there.
That is, until he found it.
And while he tried to make amends for the innocent lives he played a part in bringing to a brutal end, they didn’t seem to want apologies or admittance of guilt. They just wanted him to share their pain.
Carlisle rubbed his temples as he freed himself from the lingering parts of the vision. He looked around his empty study. The only sound was the quiet clicking from the clock perched on his desk.
He peeled his body from his Eames lounge chair and crossed to his desk. On the desk lay scattered the file from his latest case. The case which had taken top priority for his team.
It involved a murdered cop.
The cop was found in an alley, alongside another deceased man. The working theory is that the officer interrupted some kind of fight or criminal activity and was killed for it. The deceased man found with him had been associated with some unsavory characters in the area, which is why they were assuming the officer was a casualty of a gang turf war.
Carlisle was unconvinced, though. No weapons were used, and the cause of death for both men were broken necks. It didn’t fit the M.O. of gang activity, and Carlisle was not quick to buy the “initiation ritual gone awry” angle that the media was running with.
He sifted through the papers, looking to find and review his notes on that wound, when something else caught his eye. The bright smile of a young officer beamed up at him from the funeral notice included in the file.
Celebrate the Life and Impact of Officer Phillip Ackerman.
Working with his body, he had not been able to feel much. Death had come quickly and without warning. Carlisle read through the small obituary the page included, looking for something that might help him connect with the man. His eyes skimmed across the page.
Phil was born and raised in Beaver Brook, Wisconsin. His dedication to serving the public was established at an early age and inspired him to join the local police force immediately after graduating with his Associate’s degree, where he served on the Washburn County Sheriff’s Department for five years and then served another three with the SPPD.
A public Candlelight Vigil will be held in the Upper Mall Friday evening. A visitation and funeral will be held in St. Alban’s Episcopal Church in Spooner, Wisconsin, the following morning.
Carlisle stopped at the familiar name.
Sitting back at his desk, he let the idea play in his mind. He hadn’t heard from Charlie or anyone else on the force out there for a few months now. And while he also kept an ear out for news from the town, he had kept his distance.
But why was the opportunity of heading back now so exciting to him? Was he really planning to use this solemn occasion as a reason to bring himself back into life in this small, odd town. He looked back down at the earnest eyes gazing up at him from the page.
Maybe this could be an opportunity to draw more information from the victim? Carlisle pulled that thread. Certainly, being in the man’s hometown, in the precinct where he got his start, would help him connect to the man and bring more clarity to the details of his death.
Yes, he thought. I will simply help further my investigation. And even as he set his mind to it, he knew, like the work he did with his father, he didn’t quite fully believe it.