Short Story: Geometric

My car came to a stop outside the park, and I erased the line of action from the nav square. I’m cautious like that.

The body was near a stand of trees. Beth was already there.

“Do we know who it is?” I asked.

“One Nathan Ogilvy, Research and Development for General Chalk.”

“Cause of death?”

“See for yourself.”

It wasn’t pretty. I could hardly see his eyes for the blood. There was more around the mouth. No other visible wounds.

“Scene secured?”

“Violence search found nothing past the victim’s face and hands. They’re breaking the spell down, blooding it. Some of the victim’s blood already collected for a search.”

Both checks failed. Violence got a bird eating a worm. None of the victims blood was anywhere but his body, at least from the past 24 hours. No marks of the victim or underneath.

Beth just stared at the body. “He did this to himself.”

There was a call from the trees. One of the officers had found what looked like a marked tree. Then we found another. And another.

“From the right angle on the path, it could be a complete seal,” Beth said.

“The hex connectors are right, but what would the trigger be?”

Beth stopped and stared at me. “It’s mental. Reading the seal triggers the effect in the brain, where there’s too much interference for us to detect it.”

“I’ve only seen maybe five mental seals in my life, never anything more complicated than euphoria or something. This was perfectly broken up, too.”

We walked back to the path. The top of the seal was obscured by shadow.

“Dawn. It could only be seen around dawn.” Beth said.

“Especially since one of the symbols is gone.“ I said. The seal was incomplete, missing the highest portion.

“Complex construction, precisely timed, single ring, with a symbol that probably doesn’t exist officially.” Beth summarised. “Now what?”

“I think it’s time to talk to someone from General Chalk.”