Chapter 6

“I’m always being led astray. That’s fine. I do my best work when I’m being led astray.”

“Wirklich? And how about when your very life is on the line?”

Rachel narrowed her eyes suspiciously. “And why would my life be on the line?”

Isolde shrugged like an innocent child who had just been caught in a lie. But this was no lie, Rachel sensed. Not the least because, as she had just discovered, the most important fact in this case had been withheld from her — that Isolde, whose face Rauschenberg so vividly recollected in his dying memory was not, in fact, lobotomized, as those around her had claimed. If Isolde’s face was not imagined, then perhaps, neither was her turning into a monster. Rachel glanced at her cane, to assure herself that it still leaned against the wall where she left it. It, along with her ampoule, was her means of escape should this friendly seeming conversation turn south.

“Why is my life in danger?” Rachel asked again, keeping calm.

Isolde twirled her hair. She took a casual sip of the sherry, then held it out for a refill. When Rachel refused to oblige, Isolde grabbed the bottle and poured it herself.

“I’ve learned to not trust people,” Isolde replied. “I trust no one. It’s a rule. One that I’m very serious about. But you’re different, Rachel — may I call you Rachel?”

“Sure,” Rachel replied.

Isolde crinkled her nose. “So, Rachel, why am I willing to trust you?”

“I don’t have the slightest clue.”

“Why don’t you give a guess?”

“Because I appear trustworthy?”

Isolde shook her head. “No. It’s because I’m desperate. I’m against the wall and I have no other choice. So can I trust you, Rachel?”

“That depends entirely on how much you’re willing to risk in your moment of desperation, Miss Fischer.”

“Fine. I imagine you can trust me.”

Isolde smiled. She turned to gaze out the window. Her face darkened. A fleeting glimmer of sadness sprang into her eyes. A flash of lightning brightened her face fluorescently. She went over to the window and cracked it open. A gust brought in a fresh scent of rain and crisp ozone. She breathed in that scent as if to breathe in strength.

“Are you a married woman?” Isolde asked finally.

Rachel nodded. “Never been.”

“Echt? Really? How old are you, Rachel?”

Rachel chuckled. “Something wrong with that?”

“Just unexpected. Thirty-five and unmarried… That tells me something about you.”

“Oh? What does it tell you about me?”

“That I might be right in trusting you.”

“I don’t see how it matters. How old are you?”

Isolde scratched her head. “What year is it?”

“Well, older than you then.”

Rachel raised an eyebrow.

“I’ve lost track of my age. Does that surprise you?”

“I’m surprised by a lot of things about you.”

“Really? What else are you surprised by?”

She took a sip of the sherry. Rachel took a sip too after realizing she still had a full glass. It was a good sherry. Floral, sweet, though not a heavy sweetness as she was used to with sherry. Thoroughly enjoyable if she had the capacity to enjoy it.

“How astoundingly cogent you are for being lobotomized for a start,” she said after the sherry went down her throat.

“Mmm. Well, that is quite a surprise, isn’t it?”

“So why the deceit?”

“Who’s being deceitful?”

“You. And everyone who told me you were lobotomized.”

“Not once did I claim to be lobotomized.”

“But your mother did. And so did Investigator Schmidt. And I saw you myself in the library exhibiting all the hallmarks of a woman with her prefrontal cortex parted from her thalamus.

“Ah, well, you see, your eyes were not deceiving you, and neither were my mother’s, nor those of the liebling investigator Schmidt. Not in this context at least. As far as I can tell, they believe me to be lobotomized. And here’s the real surprise…”

“I am, in fact, lobotomized. Well, this body is anyway. Isolde is.”

Rachel tensed up. A shiver ran up her spine. A possession then.

Isolde, or whoever it was that possessed her, wagged a finger. She finished the rest of her sherry and replied,

“I’m in no condition to tell you. And even if I was, would you believe me? I think not. Who can believe a lobotomized woman, after all? But how’s this, I can tell you how you can find out my true nature for yourself. Perhaps it will help you with your murder investigation.”

Isolde placed the empty sherry glass on the dining table.

Rachel cocked her head. “Tell me.”

Isolde frowned. “You can’t have it that easy. I came through a storm for this, you know? I want something from you first, mein spatz.”

Isolde, or whatever spirit is in possession of Isolde’s body, let out a hauntingly rueful giggle. She leaned casually against the wall. Her bathrobe slipped open, revealing her naked body again that, for whatever reason, reminded Rachel specifically of an oil painting of a nude woman she once saw at a museum in Madrid. Isolde had the same effect the painting did. She made her blush.

Rachel had dealt with possession before. Not all are by malevolent souls. Most, in fact, are souls simply dealing with their own trauma in their own confused and often misguided way. But Rachel had never met one that wasn’t wrathful. It was safe to assume that it was the same for whatever soul possessed Isolde’s body now, so she had to stay on her guard. Still, a soul was a soul. Rachel was a soul hunter, and this soul in particular had already been stricken from its body. That made it infinitely easier to reap. While it was true that Rachel was empowered to mark souls for hell, she did not have the power to reap them, only demons, like Sam, did. She could mark souls, but souls cannot be reaped while they remain safely stowed in their bodies. The only way Sammael’s scythe could find its marked soul is when it has gone beyond the mortal plane. Rachel cannot murder the marked soul to pass them into Limbo and Sam’s waiting scythe, otherwise, she would condemn herself to hell, so she had to find creative workarounds to ensure the soul’s death, often involving the hands of others. This soul she encountered now, however — the one that possesses Isolde’s body, had already been dispossessed from its own body, which meant, she only had to meet one other criterion in order to speak the Soul Hunter’s Litany to mark the soul for hell: either undeniable evidence of the soul’s sin or a confession made in good faith. In other words, this particular soul was worth more than its weight in gold.

The possessed Isolde pressed her palms against the wall she leaned on and heaved her chest as if preparing for something that would take her breath away.

“Give me a kiss,” she said with a grin.

Rachel huffed incredulously. “A kiss?”

“Yes. A kiss. That’s all.”

Rachel rubbed the back of her neck, surprised by the random nature of the request.

“I don’t know if a kiss is a good –“

“No kiss, no help,” Isolde interrupted.

Rachel sighed. She had taken worse deals. A kiss was easy. “Ok,” Rachel said. “I’ll give you a kiss.”

“On the lips,” Isolde said with a raised finger.

Rachel went to Isolde. Isolde scrunched up. She bit her lower lip in excited anticipation. Her hand went slowly to Rachel’s face. Her fingers dragged across the line of Rachel’s lower jaw. A very lovely sensation. A human touch. Something Rachel had not had in a very long time. It made her heart flutter.

Isolde licked her lips to moisten them. Her eyes darted across Rachel’s. She smelled of bergamot, just like Sam said. A heady smell. A lovely smell.

Rachel leaned in. She paused just before the kiss, not from a fearful hesitation, she realized, but because an instinct inside her wanted her to savor the moment. It wanted her to savor this beautiful woman that stood in front of her. She planted her lips on Isolde’s. Isolde’s hand crawled up the back of Rachel’s head and pulled her in deeper. Isolde opened her mouth. Rachel opened her mouth too, and she felt Isolde’s tongue slip in.

Knees weakened, Rachel shut her eyes and let the tongue kiss happen, then, when she felt her instinct satiated by it, she released the kiss and looked into Isolde’s eyes. They were blue with desire. A sort of blue that could cause a lot of trouble for Rachel.

“Mmm, how tasty you are, mein spatz,” Isolde breathed. She went for another kiss, but Rachel pulled her head back.

“The deal was one kiss,” Rachel said. “Now tell me what you know.”

Isolde’s face drooped like a child denied a treat.

“Aww, and right when you had me spinning.”

“That’s too bad,” Rachel replied, though truthfully, she felt the spinning herself. The kiss was, admittedly, a delectable surprise. It was exhilarating. It awakened something inside her that she had not felt in a long time. But she had to shake off the good feeling. She shook it off vehemently.  She had a soul to collect after all. In all likelihood, the one she had just kissed.

“Very well then. I will tell you. Have you heard of the Odenwald Sanatorium?”

Rachel nodded. “Yes. It’s the abandoned sanatorium on the Königstuhl mountain. It belongs to the University.”

“Oh very good! Look who’s done their homework. Go there tomorrow and see what you can find. Tell no one.”

“What will I find there?”

“That’s all you can tell me?”

“That’s all I’m willing to tell you. Any other questions?”

Rachel frowned. She was hoping for something more. At least what to look for, but had a feeling Isolde was not going to tell her. She just had to trust she would discover something there that would help her case, and not seeing any better leads, she didn’t press Isolde. Instead, Rachel asked the only other question that was on her mind.

Isolde snickered. She grabbed her chemise from the chair, and her waterlogged coat from the coat rack and folded them over her arms. She went to the front door and after swinging it open, turned to Rachel and said,

“Because I wanted to know if I am right to trust you.”

“We’re almost there. You enjoyed the kiss, so at least I know now that we are kindred spirits. That bodes well for me. Good night, Rachel. And good luck.”

After the door went shut, Rachel went to her living room window to wait for Isolde to appear in the street below. The rainstorm had stopped. The water pooled in the cobblestone street reflecting the pale moonlight that had just appeared through the breaking clouds. Isolde came into view moving hurriedly. Her white wool coat shimmered mercurially in the moonlight and so did her hair. The color of her hair in the moonlight reminded Rachel of the beast in Rauschenberg’s memory. The beast’s fur shimmered in the same mercurial way Isolde’s hair did.

⛧ Chapter 4 ⛧

The daylight, shining like tarnished silver through the misted window, roused Rachel from her restless sleep.

It was much too early for Rachel’s liking, and the bustling street much too loud. She would try to return to sleep if she had no business to attend to, but unfortunately, she had business to attend to.

She sat up on the side of the bed and stared groggily at the gray glow of the window, wondering if all that had happened last night was just a dream. She often wondered if she was in a dream. She never really knew for certain that she wasn’t. Regardless, the only way forward was to put one foot in front of the other.

The Odenwald sanatorium was well-known to any who even dabbled in the world of medical research. Once, it was a famous clinic for tuberculosis patients, having served a rather important role in the research of the disease. Eventually, the tuberculosis patients were supplanted by those suffering from hysteria, schizophrenia, and other mental conditions. In the late nineteen thirties, before the Third Reich unleashed its military might on Europe, the facility closed, citing lack of funding.

Rachel remembered Schmidt’s stern insistence that she inform him of every aspect of her investigation. But in light of recent events, she wasn’t sure she could trust him to keep this secret. She did not feel compelled to keep her end of the bargain. So, she proceeded to Odenwald alone and with no intention of informing him of anything.

Connected in its history with Heidelberg University, the Odenwald Sanatorium was nestled in a monastically secluded location near the summit of the Königstuhl mountain beyond the far side of the city. It was also on the opposite side of the city from Rachel’s small flat, but Heidelberg was a small city. The walk to get there wasn’t long.

The city ended abruptly at the base of the mountain. The stone city abruptly made way for a thick autumn forest where a path steeply zigzagged between chestnut and maple trees. The leaves were a brilliant palette of golden, red, and brown. The forest path was thick with dead wet leaves that gave off a strong, sweet aroma of autumn decay. The sky cleared as the sun rose about the mountaintops, but the morning crispness remained. The mix of the sun’s heat, and the chill of the air bit Rachel’s skin in a way that was rejuvenating.

There were a few people on the path. Some were out for their morning walk. A woman and her son were digging through the broad brown chestnut leaves for fallen chestnuts. A man in a wool coat and a felt mountain hat tossed a stick while his dog romped through the deep leaves after it. An elderly man sitting on a simple wooden bench smoked a pipe. He looked to be either reminiscing or trying to forget. Rachel certainly seemed out of place here, hiking up the mountain wearing a blue wool coat and carrying a leather case and a polio cane. None would know that the strange red-headed woman was on her way to an abandoned sanatorium with the hopes of solving a double homicide. As strange as she appeared, they would be sure that she was just another enjoyer of a crisp autumn morning.