Clockwork

          The mystical figure, who moved with an exeptionally jagged and uncomfortable roughness in his joints, jumped over the rooftops with odd mechanical grace, large black brass-rimmed goggles blazing in the sun and a red silk scarf twisting in the wind behind him. The man increased his speed and some of the red tiles on the roofs of London cracked under his brass-buckled boots and shattered into pieces. People on the streets stopped to stare at the weird agile figure rapidly moving through the sunriddled sky. The running man in long leather jacket had reached the Thames faster than any steampowered locomotive could, but he didn't make any efforts to stop or slow down. All throughout the mechanical man started echoing sounds of small gears grinding and springs winding themselves up. At the very edge of the last roof he propelled himself high above the murky water. Time seemed to stop for a while as an old fisherman glanced heavenwards at the gentleman soaring over his boat. The mechanical man didn't worry about not reaching the other side, he knew exactly how far he was going to jump. A loud crash sounded over the whole city-block before the young-looking man swiftly escaped the cascade of shattering bricks from a riverside wall he had broken with his less than perfect landing. He stopped in the middle of an alleyway behind "The Devil's Tavern" and listened... he could hear nearly everything going around in the city and yet not the sound he was looking for. It had stopped. Why had it stopped?
         That voice, that ticking couldn't belong to any other timepiece- it had to be Griffin's. Although the timepiece sounded normal to everyone else the robotic human could hear a distinct difference in every clock. Griffin was a scientist, a genius and yet a psychopath. He was a thief, an arsonist and a murderer, who was easily trackable, but no matter how hard one would look, Griffin would remain unseen... The clockwork-man knew that the criminal was perfectly invisible, but not completely imperceptible. A few years ago the mechanical man had sensed Griffin's ghastly presense in a South England pub- he could hear a fainth breathing and heartbeat coming from an empty seat and on the table was a barely visible crystal pocketwatch that ticked in the most abnormal way... and later all became clear with the help of an anonymous law enforcer, who traded confidential information for gold.
        The man with brass-rimmed goggles had no other clues, thus giving up became his only option. He decided to take the streets this time around- humans had always amazed him as they made him wonder... What makes them tick? The evening had arrived almost inconspicuously and a slight dribble of rain made it seem even darker. The gear-gutted man slowly made his way through the town and that's when he heard it- The glass timepiece. In a split-second the ticking gentleman had disappeared from the streets. He made his way staright through the city over the roofs and under bridges and soon he stopped... There he was- The invisible man in a trenchcoat, face wrapped in gauze and eyes covered with dark glasses. Every streetlight he passed by seemed to flicker as if they were trying to hide the monstrous criminal in shadows. In a blink of an eye the mechanical man had silently pinned psycopath to the ground. He was trying to struggle out of his coat, but it was already too late. "Your time has run out, Griffin..." The man said with a metallic voice as Griffin shoved his hand in his coat. "Think again..." Chuckled the man covered in bandages and fired a shot. Hundreds of small gears and bolts spewed out of the humanoid machine and the ticking stopped... Griffin stood up and laughed. "You can't catch the wind, dear friend..." The hollow rattle of tiny metal pieces filled the empty street. Although one ticking had stopped, the other still remained. The figure in bandages faced away and took several long steps on the cobblestone road before realising, that he was walking of tiny shards of glass. His eyes widened as he grabbed for the pocketwatch- It was gone. The man turned to look back at the robotic corpse, but all he felt were two cold hands grasping his neck... A garish crackling split the night and the invisible man appeared once again: First the bones, then the nerves, muscles and bloodvessels and finally his pale-dead skin. 

And it all worked out like clockwork.

The Grand Grimoire

A grinning black owl clinged to the dead hawthorn, spreading it's branches over the black graveyard fence. It almost seemed like the twisted tree was trying to escape through the tall bars of cold metal. It must've known that there was no way out and yet it tried to reach the freedom beyond the horrible cemetery.
In the shadows, between the numerous massive crypts walked a dark figure. He slid his hand along the cracked wall of an ancient mausoleum. The faint breath of the centuries slowly leaked out of the marble and sent traces of long forgotten memories flashing through his head. The man stopped and took a deep breath.
It wasn't the tomb he was looking for... but he could feel it getting closer and closer by the step. The ghastly gentleman gallantly stepped in front of a heavily tilted marble cross bearing celtic engravings under a thick layer of moss. Thin streams of rain were dripping down his face and soaking into his black tailcoat embroidered with bloodred silk. The sky was almost completely black as if it was reflecting the man's state of mind. A threatening thunderclap woke him from the shallow daydream, that had silently crept to his mind and he could feel that he wasn't alone anymore.

"Hello, Viki." The man stood still and listened to the girl's feet swinging through the air in the most childish and carefree way while she was sitting on top of a comically large and out of shape tombstone. One of her black and white striped stockings was pulled up over her knee and the other one had fallen loosely around her ankle. The girl casted a glance from beneath her tophat, which was tightly stitched together from grayish-brown pieces of human skin. Her face was framed with perfect locks of bright white hair and her fern-green eyes rimmed with odd golden rings around her irises.
"My name is Victoria." She said with a slight irritation in her soft voice.
"I heard you were in town... I thought that even you wouldn't be so stupid to lift your foot in my town, but I was obviously wrong, Mr. H."
The man adjusted his perfectly round glasses and looked at the girl.
"It's doctor actually... And I can assure you that I am not looking for trouble."
She jumped off the tombstone and placed her index finger on the man's red cravat.
"Then what are you looking for, darling?"
"I'm guessing that you won't leave me alone until you find out..."
"That's right, honey. So you better start talking or I am forced to use... force." Her cute grin took a mad and rather sinister tone.

Dr. H  closed his eyes and tried to pick up the dark trace again.
"I bet you have heard of the Grand Grimoire." The girls eyes widened and although the man had shut his, he could still see everything. "I thought so." He continued. "The Grimoire of Honorius- The mother of every grimoire. I have traced it for decades now... I missed it in 1332 when captain John Crabbe cursed his ship and crew for eternity with the help of that book. I tell you he was a horrible man, but a genius at that... no one else had a ship-mounted catapult. John Dee had it for a while and Erik Weisz, a man of many names, people thought he was a fake, but in actuality a very influential magician... hiding behind cheap tricks, smoke and mirrors."
The man had led the girl to the other end of the graveyard without opening his eyes and talking all along.
The girl seemed worried. "You think it's here?"
"I know it." The man replied "I can feel it... whispering..."
The man opened his eyes and beheld the grotesque building towering in front of him. Large stone-slabs forming dark walls, that hold the most horrible curse. Two grinning devil statues on each side of the massive door added yet another dimension of evil to the atrocious crypt. He placed one hand on the weird decorative plate right in the middle of the door, his eyes lit up in a miasma of dark-red lights, while the giant stone-plate imbued with flaming-red cracks and finally cascaded into millions of little pieces. His eyes turned back to normal as he starightened his coat. The white haired girl stared into his eyes and asked:
"What are you going to do with it?"
He looked down at her and smirked as he backed into the stairway leading under the cemetery.
"Destroy the world, cupcake...destroy the world."

Late night Lucifer

Gray walls constructed of large stone slabs, ominous red lights shining from the eyes of small gargoyle statues, sturdy iron chains dangling from the ceiling and a bored man leaning on his palm behind his mahogany desk. *click-click* *click-click* The little golden pen between the lean fingers of Lucifer had been playing the same rythm for hours. His suit was wrinkled and the tip of his red tie was still a bit wet from the coffee he had spilled all over the soul-transfer papers. The fallen angel grunted and slid his hands through his long black hair. "How the fuck am I supposed to fit all these sinful souls into hell... I'm going to have to release some of them... but there aren't enough purified souls..." He riffled through packs of papers and finally pulled a laptop out of the top drawer of the desk. The devil slid his fingers over the rough, reptilic cover of the computer, opened it swiftly and started typing with inhuman speed and demonic concentration. "It seems I could send some half-complete souls out to make room for the new damned ones... but they would be prone to douchebaggery..." Lucifer's red eyes were nailed to the screen, while he nibbled on the nail of his thumb. "Well fuck it! Let there be douchebags!" The devil hit the "send" button with determination and propelled out of his chair. The charming demonic overlord straightened his suit and walked out of his office with a slight dancey ease in his steps.

The Ominous World II

     Last night a caucasian male in his early 20s walked inside BRED Banque Populaire, grabbed a stack of 20 euro banknotes, walked out and disappeared in the nightlife of Paris. He didn't pick any locks, he didn't open any doors and yet the security cameras show the skinny man, with a black goatee dressed in a steampunky leather costume complete with a silver cane, move in and out of the bank freely. How?
     Every human has a forcefield around them, an aura as some call them... you might even call it a soul. Individuals, who can see the life-energy around us and predict our moods or even thoughts, are not uncommon, but there is another kind of use for that field- Keeping a person from falling apart. There are some humans with skilled control over their physical body. They can loosen the connections between every particle in them, while still maintaining the connections and staying intact- this allows them to move through seemingly solid surfaces. Although these people are in control of their body, their minds are usually as unstabile as their particles. 


   Victor Grigoriev, 21, short black hair, goatee, severe bipolar disorder. The skinny russian had been kept in  an asylum since he was 11 years old and in there, during a sucide-attempt, he found the amazing gift that allowed him to simply leave the high-security building. Although Victor was mentally unstabile, he wasn'tstupid and managed to keep the police off his tracks easily. He didn't knew what he was looking for, but before he had been locked into the asylum, he had been to Egypt with his mother and that trip had always been his happiest memory, so why not do it again?

If you could go anywhere without being asked any unnecessary questions, where would you go?

The Ominous World I

     Have you heard that your whole life runs past your eyes right before you die? It's true, but it isn't some poetic/pathetic reminder of all the good deeds you've done or every kind word you've said, it is merely a savepoint. Everything you've felt and everything you've seen will be saved as a cluster of memories that represents a person. "Why?" you ask.

    Many mortals have wasted their lives in order to find the cure for death, but they never knew that we all hold the key, we all have the patential to live forever. The human brain was designed for immortality- Although man as a whole ages and fades, the mind is infinite. The reason of this "emergency back-up data" is simple... to cheat death and live once again, but everything good has a bad side.

     The streets of Dublin were clogged with people, running up and down the streets, but he felt that it was peaceful somehow... reminded him of London and the days he spent in his grandfather's house.

Howard Baker, 28 years of age, perfectly shaved head, rough face-lines, menobilist. Three years ago his grandfather had died. Usually mind-movers or menobilists get killed, because people, who have enough money to buy a new life, have dark secrets that need to stay hidden. Howard's grandfather had been cautious enough to live a rich life and also train an apprentice- It took the bald man a year to get the very basics down, but as grandfather had said: "One must never stop learning."

     Howard straightened his old leather jacket and stepped onto a bus. The mind-moving jobs had become rare, since many of the menobilists had been killed by organised crime leaders or rich high-rollers, but he had saved some money from earlier jobs and this kind of work had brought in a decent sum. His last job had been transferring an elderly woman's mind into a young asian girl. There used to be some conflicted feelings about ending someone's life like that, but business is business and the rich people will win most of the time. The man had sat down in a basement and placed one hand on each of the woman's foreheads. Every menobilist had their own way of picturing the minds- Howard imagined a simple holographic interface with two folders, but his grandfather had seen two books on an old writing table. After doing his job he got his money and left... as simple as that. 

     Howard wasn't afraid of death, but living as someone else had crossed his mind several times. Receiving a new life would usually be tricky, because there would be a need for an apprentice, but then again two menobilists could keep a perfect cycle of immortality... 

Howard Baker's phone started playing the theme-song of Doctor Who, on the LCD display was blinking a writing: "Grandfather"- on the man's face appeared a warm smile.