Chapter Text
The body is gutted from pelvis to mouth, one long, clean cut that appears surgical to Edwin, precise and neat, a gory contrast to the mess of meaty entrails spilling out from the corpse, over the edges of the countertop and down onto the floor. He blinks and sees the way his own organs had piled atop each other, how they'd rotted and melded into something unrecognizable as human. Nothing but defeated prey.
He turns back to their client. She has her face buried in Charles’ shoulder as she sobs, Charles patting her back comfortingly even as she drips blood onto the floor.
She can't be more than an hour dead, but Death hasn't found her yet. It's highly dangerous, the three of them being here at her murder scene, but she'd rushed for their office as soon as she realized what had happened– a fan of the supernatural during her life, and now needing their help in her death. Her ghostly form is still showing signs of trauma– not surprising, with her corpse only a few feet away.
What disturbs Edwin is that her body is still here, untouched. No police. Georgie had described her death in brutal detail, including her screams for help and attempts to fight back. Edwin can see shattered dishes and a kicked-in cabinet in the young woman's kitchen that prove she was telling the truth.
So how is it that no-one has been alerted to her murder?
Edwin takes a few careful steps forward, close enough that Georgie's view of the body is blocked. He coughs gently.
Georgie shifts her head so she can see Edwin, her sobs slowing down. She doesn't leave Charles’ embrace, and Edwin can't blame her.
“Are you certain you would not rather return to our office to discuss your case?” Edwin offers again. “Charles and I can check over your flat at a later date, I assure you we are very thorough and–”
“No!” Georgie shouts, cringing at the sound of her own voice.
Charles whispers something that sounds like, “you’re safe with us, yeah?”
A few deep breaths later, Georgie relaxes enough to speak again. “No,” she repeats. “There’s something, I don’t know– something drawing me back here. I have to know who killed me to move on, right?” The boys exchange a tentative nod– it's a likely guess, but impossible to confirm until they know more. Still, Georgie takes it as proof. “Right. Well, maybe the killer missed something. Maybe they're going to come back. We need to look around.”
Selfishly, Edwin doesn't want to investigate alone. Every time he blinks he's reminded of the way his flesh would congeal and cool, the way bones would crunch and muscles would snap. It is unlikely the killer here holds the same kind of hunger as the spider. Still…
Charles meets Edwin's eyes over Georgie's shoulder, and determination settles over his features. He turns Georgie to face him.
“Right, we're gonna have a look around, yeah?” Georgie nods feebly, and Charles grins at her, bright and reassuring. “Can you do us a favor and write down everything you can remember about this week, from the time you woke up to visiting us? Helpful to have a written account, detailed as you can make it.” As he talks, Charles rummages around in his bag for a moment before producing a plain leather journal and fountain pen, both of which he hands to Georgie.
Edwin is once-again struck by Charles’ quick-thinking. Putting Georgie to such a task could provide more clues to her murder, but, more importantly, it will keep her occupied, head down, focusing on her memories instead of the grisly scene in her flat.
When Charles comes to stand by his side, Edwin quickly squeezes his shoulder as thanks.
With Georgie's body already investigated, the boys start with the rest of the kitchen, quietly opening cabinets and drawers.
“I don't get it, mate,” Charles mutters, sticking close as they move to the living room. “Nice girl, friendly with coworkers, no jilted lovers or family troubles. Why kill her?”
Edwin hums, sticking his arm through the sofa and feeling for anything interesting. Nothing but dust and coins. He grimaces. “I agree,” he replies, wiping his palm free of unnecessary dust, “that a motive does not seem obvious. But not all crimes require motives. Sometimes, violence is just…”
“Violence,” Charles finishes. “Yeah.” Charles flips through the mail on her coffee table. “Just seems a shame we can't find more of an answer for her.”
They move to Georgie’s bedroom next, and it’s ordinary. Again. Edwin feels a mounting pressure of frustration behind eyes.
“Doesn't make sense, does it,” Charles says, moving around Edwin to check Georgie’s closet, brushing his palm down Edwin's spine as he walks.
There's very little, Edwin knows, that frustrates them both more than being unable to help a client. It's the work of Edwin's afterlife, and Charles–miracle of miracle, Charles– has chosen that same exhausting, unending work instead of his paradise.
Edwin steadies himself, straightens and steeples his fingers together. “Well,” he begins, “the answers we need clearly lie elsewhere. We should–”
Georgie screams.
No, not a scream. Edwin's heard those many times before. This is a rarer sound, a gutted, agonized wail that comes from someone's very core. Edwin's only heard it twice before, and now it fills him with paralyzing dread just as it did before.
Only now, he's not alone. He has someone to protect.
“Charles, get behind me,” Edwin orders, moving as quickly as he can to the nearest vantage point that will give them a clear view of the kitchen.
“Edwin,” Charles hisses urgently, “what the fuck are you doing? We need to help Georgie.”
Edwin hears a near-silent whoosh from behind him, knows Charles has his bat out and primed for defense.
“I am sorry, Charles,” Edwin whispers back. “But I fear it is already too late.”
“What–”
Charles’ reply dies in his throat as they peer into the kitchen. Georgie's wailing cuts out in the same instant, leaving an awful void of sound to contrast the horrific visual confirming Edwin's worst fears.
Half of Georgie's face is…gone. Raw sinew and cracked teeth show the jagged line where one half still exists. The missing chunk leaves a shimmer in the air, a kind of oil-slick wrongness infinitely worse than Georgie’s physical corpse just a few feet from her ghost.
Georgie's neck is gouged through the middle, her left arm missing up to the elbow. Her remaining eye locks on the two boys with a level of grief Edwin hasn't seen since Limbo.
“Edwin.” Charles’ voice breaks halfway through the name.
Edwin spins just enough to clamp his hand over Charles’ mouth, hard. “It is awful,” he breathes, loathing that Charles must witness this too, that a piece of Hell has crawled up to find them despite a decade of running. “I know it is awful,” Edwin repeats, “but we must be very, very quiet.”
Slowly, carefully, he lifts his left hand and points to the thing in the room with them and what's left of Georgie. Edwin feels the startled gasp from Charles that he muffles.
Mercy claws at the seams of Edwin's composure when the creature does not notice them. It never had a proper name in Hell– just stories, terrible stories, of what happened when a ghost was devoured piece by piece, when they could feel themselves being torn to nothing.
Edwin had taken to calling them soul eaters.
The beast wrapped around Georgie’s legs is easily twice her size. Its pale flesh is turning pinker by the second, an added glow with each hungry bite. Six limbs– neither arms nor legs, but a combination of both– stretch up and around Georgie's torso, kneading at her body like a contented cat. Its eyes are closed in pleasure, and its mouth is red and wet.
Both boys are kept frozen in place by their horror, unable to look away as pieces of Georgie are torn away and swallowed, one by one by one, until all that is left is a hovering oil slick of nothing at all.
The soul eater crunches its last bite. To Edwin, there is something almost…grateful, about it, as though it needs to savour the taste, appreciate it fully. He does not bother to hide his grimace. The monster lumbers away after what could be a week of waiting, and Edwin collapses to his knees– barely managing not to phase through the floor– the moment he is certain it is gone.
Charles wraps himself around Edwin, holding on tight, and Edwin sobs once, loudly, before pulling Charles into his arms so they can cling to each other properly.
Edwin composes himself as swiftly as he can– a shoddy, barely-supported composure, just enough to get them out of this flat– and he makes sure Charles goes first when they crawl through the bathroom mirror to their office.
They end up on the floor again, backs to Edwin's desk, too wound up to speak.
Eventually, in the early hours of the next morning– Edwin's been counting shadows and keeping his mind blank– Charles speaks.
“We killed her.” His voice is hollow and cold, a tone it should never be. “If we hadn't– hadn't helped her, she might've– I left her alone–”
“Charles!” Edwin tugs them both to their feet and cups his hands around his partner's face. “Charles, a soul eater will hunt to the ends of the earth to find their victim.” He stares into Charles’ eyes, willing him to believe what Edwin's saying. “Nothing could've saved her.”
“Doesn't make it okay, does it,” Charles replies, running a hand through his hair. He keeps his other hand on Edwin's back. “Fuck, but that thing was scary. Why didn't it– why didn't it go after us?”
Edwin swallows, runs his thumbs along Charles’ jaw in even motions. “From what I have heard–” he catches the question on Charles’ face, and silently promises to answer it later– “from the little I have heard, the victims of soul eaters are…marked, somehow. A way to track them, and them alone.”
As always, Charles is quick to understand. “Georgie's murder– you think she was killed just to, what, feed that monster?”
“I can't be certain,” Edwin answers. “But it is a disturbing possibility.”
“Right,” Charles says, mostly to himself. “Then we'll just have to stop it before it takes anyone else.”