We only learn as much as we are able to believe.

“No! I published... An article.” Dominic looked decidedly shifty: he had written for a largely underground newspaper, one of the chief methods for necromancers to exchange ideas. Necromancers tended not to like computers. They liked to hide their writing with spells, and computer code could not accommodate that.

“We believe that magic is specifically in the blood, and that it is made in the bone. Experiments proved it in 18th century? Apparently. It is possible to separate the two, but I thought – why bother? It loses most of its power in the transformation. Instead, I thought, it is surely possible to do the opposite and command someone else's magic? And by that, their blood. If you steal control of that, you have their body. You could rip it apart from the inside... As neatly or as messily as you liked. When I wrote that shit, I was wondering about theory, not.. .The practical side. I got a lot of answers, regarding that. Some letters.”

“I don't know how to explain.” He paced in front of Neil, leaving shoeprints of the blood. “I don't know how to say it in a way... This isn't physics or mechanics or real world stuff.” He could only see any of this because the scene was so new. An hour later, and there would have been only congealed blood and random limbs, not even the faint smell of the spells. “All I think is... Well. I guess it can definitely be done.” He glanced back at the scene, frowning.

Neil frowned. His frowned deepened further as Dominic explained. If any of this got out, there was a high probability that Dominic was fucked. There was nothing technically wrong with theorising shit, people did it all the time, but the law had a tendency to do things slightly differently when it came to users. Especially users who had published an article in an illegal journal or newspaper, and Neil was pretty sure that any place where Dominic could publish such an article wouldn't exactly be sanctioned by the government. Damn it.

"So you were just theorising about how possible it was?" he asked, after a long pause. "You didn't tell anyone how to do it, or how to try it?" Because if Dominic had given any indication how someone could do something like that, they had a real problem. Neil rubbed at the back of his neck and scowled, tense and on edge.

"Let me see if I understand. Magic is entwined in the blood, made by the bone marrow in the same way that white cells are? Or something like that? If a user takes control of someone else's magic, they also take control of their blood and therefore their body. Which is why there is blood here, and limbs over there?" He paused. "So how did the guy separate the magic from the blood once he got it out of this guy's body? I'm assuming he doesn't carry a cloud of blood around him wherever he goes, that would make it kind of easy to spot, wouldn't it?"

Dominic's silence said a lot. In the journal, maybe, the most he had done was suggest which spells could potentially be modified... But in private correspondence, he had considered how it could be done, and asked for other people's thoughts. He had been naïve. He had thought that no one would actually even consider trying it, apart from little experiments on his own blood.

"I don't know about blood cells," Dominic said irritably. Necromancers didn't tend to learn more than anatomy - hard to make spells work if they were in the wrong place - and thereby most other basic biology was outside Dominic's knowledge. "I think you get it, yeah. The separation's the easy part. All you need to do is use it up as spells. There are ways of stealing energy from other people's spells. It's basic self-defence. He probably stores it in some way."

He really wished that he hadn't been so stupid when he was younger. This was like all of his past mistakes coming back to haunt him. How could he have thought that it was possible to talk about these things coldly, as if it concerned no one real? It was such a horrible way to die. "I'm no closer to knowing who did this, and at this rate there's soon going to be only two necromancers still alive in this town."

Dominic's silence said a lot indeed. "Hopefully one of those two are you," Neil said. Or hopefully, they caught this guy before it came down to that. Neil didn't want to be in a position where Dom was next on the list. Failure was not an option. Neil fell silent for a long moment, staring at the brick and trying to think.

"Okay. So you theorised this in an article. No way to tell who read the article, but you mentioned answers. Letters? Correspondence? That's the place to start," Neil said. "You need to make a list of everyone that you were in contact with about this. But first, think back. Did anyone seem exceptionally eager, keen to talk about it, more interested than the others? Did anyone want to talk about how to do it, or how it worked?" He looked at Dominic, studying the other man's face.

What Dominic suddenly wanted was for someone to pat him on the head and tell him it'll all be fine, like when he was five or something. He preferred tame little murders, crimes of passion, not meticulous planning and years of practice. A stabbing, strangulation, slit throat, mashed body that had fallen off a building – those had never got to Dominic. This however, was something that could happen to him. The more horrific type of unnatural death.

“I still have them. Somewhere.” He plucked one of his birds out of the air and nuzzled her head. He didn't care how ridiculous he looked right then, but he needed something. “Thing is, I was pretty eager to talk about it too, then. All spells are beautiful, in form. It was the only thing I thought about.” He hadn't even thought about it for years. He understood these days that beautiful spells have very ugly consequences.

The problem with users (especially necromancers) was that the stupid musings of a youth could have big consequences, and Dominic was living through that lesson right now. Though it was likely that the other had been given that lesson before, though maybe not at quite the same level. Where Neil has been doing stupid things like accidentally smashing windows or drinking too much, what Dominic had been doing was a lot more serious, and a lot scarier.

Neil ran a hand through his hair and looked at Dominic. Part of him raged - how could the other ever be so stupid? Another part of him understood. This was why it was so easy to hate users - they were just people. They were human, with human faults, human vanity and human curiosity. They just had a lot more power and could cause a lot more damage than the average human. It was troubling, and maybe a little unfair, but it made users more dangerous than they knew.

"Well, we need to take a look at the letters," Neil said, after a long pause. "That's still our best bet. Come on, let's go back to your place, dig them out and take a look at them." At least they had an actual lead.

He had been a complete fool. Absolute idiot. Now that he was thinking about this, why had he even triggered the spell? Why did he make himself a target? He wanted to wash his hands of all of this, but the chances of the police finding another necromancer that would know more than Dominic on this matter were... Slim, to say the best. Anyone else that might understand this would prefer a ticket to another city instead of getting involved. Dominic was thinking that he would prefer that option too...

He shifted uncomfortably under Neil's gaze. “Look, I....” He had no idea what.

“I guess that we should do that.” Where the hell were they anyway? Dominic had moved so often that he rarely bothered to do more put the books on a shelf and take out the necessities. “How long do you think DNA tests on this will take?”

"Probably a week," Neil said. "Takes at least three days from when they receive the sample, but this is a high priority case so hopefully it'll be put at the head of the list and the wait won't be too long." He sighed and rubbed at the back of his neck. This was all so complicated - it made him long for an ordinary serial killer case. Something without all this user crap, where he could pursue normal leads and not have to worry about Dominic's blood suddenly migrating from his body. Damn it.

"Come on." He took Dominic by the elbow, guiding his partner back toward his car with a little more force than necessary. It was stupid to feel protective of Dominic - it wasn't like he could stop anything, when it came to this. Dominic was far more powerful than he was, and that just unsettled Neil more. He got into the car, gesturing for the other to follow. When there were lives that he actually knew on the line, this was more than a job.

Some force did actually need to be used to move Dominic - he both wanted to get away and stay to stare at the scene, as if by merely looking at it he was likely to understand something more. The bird in his hand had to nip his fingers sharply to get released, joining her sister on his shoulder. They groomed each other, as if unsure of what to do either, and not knowing how to help Dominic. Their human was an idiot, but so were they for not having realised what stupid thing he had been doing.

Dominic sat in the passenger seat and exhaled slowly, as if letting out pent up tension. "There's going to be more of these." There was no way that someone could start a series of such careful murders and not intend to continue. "I don't think we should tell them that whoever it is will only be targeting necromancers. It might dampen their desire to see them caught."

"I know there's going to be more of them," Neil said. He ran a hand through his hair and tried to gather his thoughts. "Whoever they are, they're hardly going to stop now. Especially as they're getting away with it." Neil started the engine, trying to think. He was very out of his depth. How was he supposed to investigate a murder that he knew practically nothing about? Not to mention, how the hell was anyone supposed to apprehend a damn necromancer? Neil supposed that he should work on one thing at a time - he had to find the guy before he worried about how to actually stop him.

"No, I don't think it's a good idea to tell them that, either. They might just think that the less necromancers the better," Neil said, pulling out into the traffic. It was a good thing he had a good memory for directions - he headed towards Dominic's home with barely a pause.

Dominic suspected that somewhere, someone knew what was going on, but that they just didn't think that the police would have any interest in helping. There we're at least a thousand necromancers in the city, from those who just had a little bit knack, to those who practised the more traditional art of talking to the dead, to the few like Dominic. His people just weren't incredibly talkative and had little faith in the police. Until he started working for law enforcement, Dominic used to be convinced that all the cops really wanted to do to him was lock him up, but it wasn't that simple. There were, after all, people like Neil, who might try to understand and try to help.

Dominic was silent for most of the ride, pleasantly surprised that Neil actually remembered where it was. Non-users had their talents too, after all! When Neil parked, Dominic said, "I'm glad I'm working with someone like you. You're trying." Most non-users didn't even bother. "You didn't call me a moron either!"

"I'm pretty sure that I did call you a moron at some point, or some variation thereof," Neil said, snorting slightly. He got out of the car and slammed the door shut behind him. Neil waited for Dominic to get out before he locked the car up - this wasn't the kind of neighbourhood where he felt he could risk leaving his car unlocked.

"Users are dangerous, but that doesn't mean they should be preyed upon," Neil said. "Many of them don't mean to be. But unfortunately, by the very nature of what they are. Well, if a human makes a mistake, the consequences aren't often as dire, that's all I'm saying. A mistake from someone like you costs lives." He headed toward Dominic's house. "I can see why people don't like your kind. Part of me doesn't like your kind, but that doesn't mean it's right for you to be slaughtered. And yes, I'm... trying."

Dominic considered the car for a moment, wondering whether it was worth the effort of protecting it. Probably not - Neil's car didn't look expensive enough to be worth stealing. And extending the wards on his home might weaken them.

He led them to the upstairs flat, giving a nod to the shaven headed thug hanging by his neighbours' door. He was greeted back with a slight smile. Having a necromancer next door really helped with deterring trouble, even if it was a fag. Neil got a bit of a glare, however. People like that could smell a copper miles away. Dominic paid no attention to that whatsoever, undoing the wards on his door. They were undisturbed. Good. Were these murders starting to make him paranoid? Argh. Why should anyone have tried to break in anyway? Why was he checking so carefully? He felt silly.

Holding the door open and kicking off his boots, he said, "Make yourself at home." There was only really the living room to do that in. The kitchen was tiny, and the bedroom only really fitted a bed. "Want something to drink?"

Neil glared right back. If they left him alone, he'd leave them alone. He didn't want to get Dominic revenge-shot or something ridiculous like that, and he had bigger fish to fry than narc. He was a homicide detective, he left all that kind of stuff to another department. They were safe as long as they didn't try any shit. And Neil was really hoping they didn't try anything, because his only backup was Dominic. Though he was starting to realise that a necromancer as powerful as Dominic was probably the best backup he could have.

"I would love a whole fucking pint of whiskey right now, but I'm on the job," Neil said, shaking his head. They weren't here to socialise and have a little tête à tête, they were here for a very specific reason. "Right. Correspondence letters. We need to get on those right away. You have any idea where they are?" he asked, raising an eyebrow at Dominic.

“Well, help yourself to something if you want to.” Dominic was probably the only person in the building without alcohol in his home. On the other hand, he did have necromantic artifacts, tomes, perches for his birds and bowls of water dotted around the room. The latter was probably for the benefit of the feathered inhabitants.

The one door Dominic always kept closed turned out to be a cupboard. It wasn't pretty – it was full of boxes, some cardboard, some plastic. Of course he knew where the letters were. Somewhere in there. He began checking them one by one, re-stacking them carefully. Neil probably wouldn't like the size of the box that Dominic finally picked up and dumped on the coffee table. It was a big, square cardboard box, full of envelopes and the letters replaced inside them. Some were tied in bundles, but most were loose. (Dominic was, apparently, very neat when opening post. They all had only one side sliced open, slit cleanly.) Not all of them had a postmark. Some had obviously been only tossed in under a door. Most of those were only letters of introduction, listing the local conventions between users in all the places Dominic had ever lived. None were signed with names, but with symbols, some in blood. Necromancers had the tendency for dramatic.

Dominic fetched a notebook and a pen too, sketching the sigils that were the familiar ones: his tutor, his father, his brothers, his sister. Dominic would have known their magic easily. Those letters could just be set aside. Most of the correspondence contained sketches of rituals and spells, series of instructions, discussions whether one spell would be better than others. In some places, the entire letter was traced with a spell to obscure the text entirely.

“So, these can just go back in the box, half a pile each and if you can't read any of it hand it to me?” Dominic suggested.