The Investigator And The Case of the Missing Brain

By Alberto Catellani

If one could murder sanity, then the Investigator would be the prime suspect.
He walked without a care in the world. Nobody who knew him would question him, and those who didn’t know the man generally learned his quirks in time to avoid meeting a gory end.
As Lyara hurried behind The Investigator, she reckoned it could have been worse. The Investigator simply was the prime force to reckon with in Cloatos, and that was while considering the ancient evils that lurked beneath the depths of the city, the primeval plagues that scoured the living, the poisonous insects and plants, the diseased minds of psychopaths and much more.
The Investigator didn’t bleed like normal men. He didn’t feel pain. He didn’t suffer.
He was an Unnatural, and his favorite food was despair.

The Investigator and The Case of the Missing Brain is a dark humor, urban fantasy filled adventure that is set into a grim looking penal colony for the wicked known as Cloatos, ruled by the law of survival of the smartest and deep underground, where magics both ancient and powerful keep those who enter inside, and prevent any escape.

Lyara is a cynical, hard-nosed girl scraping barely by, and with all the bad luck of the world on her shoulders, for she has caught the Investigator's interest, and that is never a good thing. With venom and sarcasm dripping from her every word, even scenes of uncommon horror hardly faze her.
The Investigator is a witty psychopath with a penchant for sadism, but a monster has to eat, and he feeds on despair. His hobby of solving troubles in the underground colony stem from a mere desire to stave off his boredom as he plans his great escape from the inescapable prison, and no proper Investigator would work without an assistant. Never mind the gruesome ends his assistants always end up in.

"An interesting story, with proper servings of despair and horror (as expected from Sir Shadenight). Very gritty.
And then you introduce the Investigator.
Hoo boy. Even among the rest of them, his affable evil and casual violation of her personal freedom and identity really stands out and makes the character's suffering that much more real." -Unelemental

"Cloatos: Very interesting dynamics, very interesting world building. The Unnaturals the small things the monsters, it is great. Basileus: Very well crafted monster. When he plays around: terrifying. When he stops playing around: intriguing." -Ian Drash

"It's gorgeous. I like Basileus and his blatant psychopathy and sadism the most." -Alphaleph

• Language: English
• Publisher: Alberto Catellani
• Release date: Jan 9, 2019
• ISBN: 9781370399925

Alberto Catellani

Alberto Catellani was born on the 9 of March from the country that brought forth the greatest of inventions: the Road. We are talking of Italy, and he was born on a dark and stormy night at 3 in the morning. From a bright and early age, he wanted to write and once he found his grandfather's old typing machine, write he did. What he wrote back then is best left forgotten to the annals of time. Still, he keeps writing on. Known on the Internet as Shadenight123, and outside of it as someone with fifteen years plus of experience as a Dungeon Master capable of actually finishing the campaigns he starts, he has enjoyed a Classical Schooling, moved on to the beer-filled lands of Germany, and is currently attempting a Master level degree with, hopefully, a Ph.D afterwards. And in the meantime, he keeps on writing. Writing brings happiness, to himself and to those who enjoy his books and that, more than anything, is what truly makes him willing to write more and more. If you work at something you enjoy doing, after all, it will be as if you haven't been working at all.

Book preview

Chapter One: The City of Cloatos

The morning neared in the underground pit of hell aptly used as a prison for the criminals and the unwanted. The sun, rising over the horizon in the world Above, took a few minutes to show its rays through the hole in the cavern’s side. The light hit the swiveling mirrors of the tall walls of the Gates, which spun and settled into position with loud creaking sounds.

That day, Cloatos would have light.

The rays proceeded, weakened by the refraction on the dirty mirrors, and hit against pale purple crystals, embedded within the ceiling of the cave. The crystals glowed, pulsed, started to shine, and released rays of their own. Those rays struck other crystals along the way, cascading the effect and increasing the luminosity with each passing second.

A streak of light passed through a hole in the ceiling of an old and decrepit building, and hit a small crystal outcropping grown over a corner of a dirty and garbage-filled room, before it began to move across the forehead of a sleeping girl, her body mostly hidden by a dust-colored sheet.

Lyara screamed, and woke from her nightmare moments before the ray reached her eyelids. Her hands clutched the bed’s blankets, her eyes widened from fear, and she trembled until the fog of sleep left her.

The sheet barely covered her as she huddled in the filthiest and muddied corner of her abandoned building.

A few spiders crawled their way out from under her sheet, small pouches of silk on their backs filled with food. The creatures scurried their way across the walls, and left through the cracks in the stone with sick ‘plop’ sounds.

Lyara stood up and swatted away dust from her face together with the few tears marring her cheeks after the nightmare, and gave a hesitant sniff to the brownish, frayed blouse that clung to her body like an oversized blanket, reeking of mold and sewer. She checked her knife, strapped to her trousers’ belt buckle.

She took it out from its holder, and softly touched its rust-filled blade with the tip of her fingers, before absentmindedly grinding its edge against the nearby rock until sparks flew from the motion.

Lyara sheathed the knife after that, firmly tucking it by her navel.

Welcome to another morning in Cloatos, Lyara, she said, and slapped her cheeks with enough strength to swat away the little sleep she still had in her body, another day filled with pain. She moved closer to one of the many holes in the walls; there were windows once, but now not even the frames remained. Her hands gripped firmly on the edge.

Swarms of flies buzzed across the garbage mountain below, a pool of dirty water their birthing pit, as they ate away at the sacks and the waste.

The water was also her morning mirror.

Her reflection winced. Her dirty brown hair, once bright hazel, and dark eyes had a harsh and hateful glare. She couldn’t believe it was her normal gaze; she had such a hard, spite-filled look, so different from what she remembered.

Her right cheek sported a deep jagged scar, the result of a narrow loss in a fight for food. She tried to remember her face before; in one of her dreams, she could still remember her reflection in a real mirror, and not in a pool of rotting water and filth.

She was blond in her memories, and her eyes brown, with the beautiful glint of happiness within them. That was when her nightmares started.

She shuddered and pulled away from the hole and her reflection; it was no use dwelling on her appearance and she was wasting time.

Lyara walked towards the entrance of her house, which she had battled for with her rusty knife and a good dose of hissing and snarling at the previous owner.

The cobblestone street, the cracks covered with moss, wasn’t busy so soon after dawn. Most of the people still slept, or were too afraid of the Forgotten to step out before what passed as noon in their city. Tattered clothes hung from the windows, some still dribbling blood from a day of hard work in the streets.

The day has come, the day has come, a voice sang from a window a few feet away, across the road and at the second floor of another equally ruined building.

It belonged to Miss Caroline, a mad woman, song deaf and with a stump for a right leg. The beasts retreat, for the day is coming!

Lyara clicked her tongue against the back of her teeth and closed the door behind her. If Miss Caroline sang, it meant that it was safe to go outside.

The Forgotten that lurked the night of Cloatos retreated to the safety of their dark alleys when the Sun Crystals’ glow was at its highest.

A bulky figure walked on the opposite side of the street as Lyara left the alcove of her building’s entrance. He strode with purpose, and new people in the city never walked with purpose, and had a grey trench coat covering most of his body. His dark grey hair came down in curls, covering most of his face except for a side of it, mottled with acid burns.

Lyara glanced away quickly when she saw the grey coloration of his clothes and hurried her steps.

He was a member of Filth’s gang. He was old and the old ones were the most dangerous and insane; they had survived long enough in the city to know the tricks to it, and turned them to their advantage. The people of the gangs were scary like that, and with Filth’s gang made of cannibals, they were the worst in the city.

Lyara was tempted to step back inside, because seeing a Grey first thing in the morning was an ill omen. She could go out another day; she had some meager reserves yet and she could feed on those.

Those who do not hunt do not eat, she whispered, trying to pull her courage from somewhere deep within her body, as a friend of hers used to say. She no longer remembered who he was, or what his face was like, but if she had bargained his face and the memories of him for something, he wasn’t anyone important enough to her.

The light of the sun directly reached the city from the fissure as she left behind the safety of Bloodcurl Avenue, her home address. The rays, refracted against the enormous crystal ceiling, showered everything in an unearthly red and orange tint.

The world above had midday as the brightest moment of the day. The people of Cloatos had the morning hour.

There were barely a hundred of steps between her house and the market district, and she rushed through them, eager to start the day.

The square was empty and desolate early in the morning, as all merchants moved like clockwork, and headed off at the same time like sheep in a herd. It wasn’t yet time for them to come out of their hiding holes with their stocks, eager for bartering with the new guys and ripping everything they could get away from them.

Lyara sat down near the empty and broken fountain that stood in the corner of the square and her gaze carefully moved to where the shadows grew thicker in the nearby dark alley.

The remains of rats near the entrance of the alley were a clear indication, in their bony white splendor, that a Forgotten had made his nest in there.

She fingered the handle of her knife, ignored the spot, and hoped the Forgotten was sleeping already, or would soon fall asleep.

Food, the Forgotten said from the alley.

She breathed deeply, and tried to calm her heart spiked up by the sudden call. Even after all the years spent in Cloatos, the unnatural voice of a Forgotten made her fear.

The creature had yet to go to sleep for the day, if it could talk to her still. Come closer. Food, it said. I have food.

The thing hid in the darkness, and avoided the light of the Sun Crystals. Its appearance was difficult to discern, but it was nothing of human. The hissing and the clicking between its words gave it away.

Lyara did not reply.

The Forgotten were a breed of Unnatural that rarely ventured out of the dark alleys, but some did, especially if their prey talked back to them, or caught their attention. The rays of the Crystals made them weak, and disoriented them, but it didn’t stop them when on a rampage. They were a nuisance mostly, but at the same time, even the weakest of Forgotten was deadly.

Food, it said again. Its voice was soft, as if falling asleep. I have food. It did not know what it was saying; only that food would come if it said those words. Thankfully, the Forgotten weren’t intelligent, but they were smart enough to know the one thing that could convince the people around to enter the alleys when at their wits’ end.

Lyara hugged her knees, and pressed her back against the fountain’s edge. She ignored the Forgotten’s voice, and let the monster repeat its call a few more times until its voice lowered down to a whimper, before it fell silent.

The creature had fallen asleep.

The merchants arrived in bulk after that, and she frowned as her usual milk cow was missing, an old man with a patch over his right eye always carried something comestible among his wares, and she could easily steal from him by approaching from his blindside.

Patch-Man wasn’t there that day. The market buzzed with activity within minutes, screams of the vendors interweaving with frantic bartering and gesticulation of sorts as the first clients of the morning walked in their ragged clothes, vividly interested in the merchandise. She had lost her chance waiting for the man, and with the wares of the other merchants all set up, it was now difficult to try something.

She disappeared in the crowd, headed for her second chance at a meal.

The dumpster behind the Drowned Hangman was probably a safe bet as always, but she’d have to fight her way through another kid for a champion’s bin. Broken Fingers had entered a gang, the Reds, while the ‘young’ Minxie was out with a broken leg —meaning her cronies wouldn’t be there that day. Her knife at her belt, she trusted in her skills enough to assure a quality choice of breakfast, and if things went sour, she had the Investigator’s blessing on her side.

She disliked relying on the Bastard’s gift, but it was useful, and she would never spit on what kept her alive one more day in the city.

Lyara hurried her step when she heard the sound of grunting and exertion from around the corner. It was the usual noise for the ‘Arena’ when it was in full swing.

The dumpster was there, the windows above it open, and trash fell from the busy kitchens of the ugly establishment directly into it. The pub held what little food it could steal from the ration-men, and sold it back to the people in exchange for money and work.

Dirty, ragged street rats like her eyed each other near the dumping grounds. A few older children with broken boots and squared jaws held makeshift pikes out of sharpened steel tubes, rusty and bent. A couple of adults oversaw the thing, their eyes gleaming at the amusing scene of hungry children fighting each other off to the first blood —or to the death— for scraps of food.

Get him Benny! one of the adults hooted from a window of the pub’s back. I bet big bucks on you!

Gut him like a pig Snark! There’s a juicy bit of roast waiting for you!

A few of the youngest children rooted on their champions of the day. The blood within the Arena’s ground shone fresh —one of the two contestants was bleeding, but had refused to back down.

There were guttural screams, rust hit flesh and skin ruptured into festering wounds. The rust in Cloatos wasn’t simple rust. It devoured everything, be it metal or flesh.

Lyara pushed her way past the back rows, and made her way to the front of the crowd to watch.

The two boys faced each other, both wounded, but neither willing to stop. They were hungry, and their eyes were vicious.

She knew Benny by sight.

He was on the right, one of the anglers’ spawns with a few scales around his cheeks and half of his hair matted together into a sleek-looking fin. The other one looked human enough, if not for the crimson eyes that betrayed him for something different.

That one had to be Snark.

Benny had a fishing hook in his right hand, big enough to fish a shark or gut a man. He was bleeding from his right arm, the source of the blood. Sickly green moss grew from the wound already.

Snark had a curved sickle, dented and pilfered from the Fungi Pits judging by the moss overgrowing on its blade. It took guts to do that —it was a sign of stupidity to steal anything from the Fungi Pits and from the Moss Lords— but to survive the Pits was a sign of skill.

Benny wildly slashed forward, and left himself wide open as Snark’s blade came down hard on his slashing attempt and hit his hook. The tug of war lasted for a second, before Benny lost the grip on his hook and the sickle continued its path, cutting the fisherman’s chest.

The crowd howled in ecstasy as the slice drew blood; some clapped hands and others hurled insults at Benny’s weakness. A few of the children nearby grabbed the loser who clutched on to his bleeding chest, and threw him out of the ring.

Lyara’s eyes were cold; she moved past the rowdy children, who cheered their champion in hope for a merciful scrap from winners’ bin.

Snark wasn’t inclined to share; he gruffly took his bin and walked out of there without giving a spare glance.

And that was our rising star Snark ladies and gentlemen! Now who’s up next for a champion’s bin?

The announcer, his face a smile of crooked yellow teeth and rotten gums, yelled at the windows, Someone wants more blood! The fight for food was the pub’s favorite sport after all, held for the ‘high class’ who enjoyed it.

Now, come on, the organizer said. Going home with food in your bellies isn’t hard! If you win, you get a champion’s bin and if you lose, you get a loser’s bin. There’s food for everyone, winners and losers! It hurts just a bit, but if you’re good, you don’t get hurt at all!

Sign me up! a wimpy girl of barely eight screamed, her mouth broken and her lower lip cut. At first glance she was weapon-less, wore a large muffler and a broken skirt with long socks and half-broken shoes.

Lyara’s eyes narrowed on the girl’s right sleeve, which held her tiny fist closed tightly, and at the pointy metal tip that peeked out from her grubby hand.

She approved of that. The girl had a pair of scissors hidden in her hand.

Here comes a delicious morsel! the announcer howled, Who’ll challenge this child, uh?

The scrawny thing, with a pair of broken scissors in her grubby hands, was probably at her first fight. She had to be one of Minxie’s kids. Minxie liked to get them young.

Lyara refrained from stepping into the ring. If the kid belonged to Minxie, then winning here meant receiving punishment later across the street. The kids went everywhere, and nobody considered a kid a threat until he whipped out a knife to chop your flesh.

I-I’m challenging her! another kid said, and held his hand up in the air, as if he were asking permission to a teacher to go take a leak.

The announcer gave one long look at the dirty faced kid, and grinned. He then ignored him completely.

The kid was just like any another scared child, willing to try his hand against a weaponless opponent. He had the same age as the girl, and their faces were similar.

Lyara exhaled softly. There wasn’t going to be an easy picking that day. They’d call out one of the big guys in the kitchen; have them hold a teaching lesson to the would-be fakers. In the ring, fixing the match beforehand wasn’t just frowned upon. It was suicidal.

The announcer had a penchant for finding out, and those who cheated their way to victory got a lesson they would hardly forget.

Well? Is there no one that wants to challenge this little darling? There’s really nobody in the crowd? Well! Well then, spectators of the Drowned Hangman! he raised his arms to the windows, a large smile on his face, is there anyone you want as your chef!

Hey! I said—

The crowd silenced the boy, and the girl inside the ring shrilly screamed. Her brother had come up with quite the wonderful idea; a pity that idea wasn’t smart enough to trick any of the adults of the Drowned Hangman.

Tenderer! Tenderer! the crowd’s howling call grew with each thrust of the announcer’s arms upwards, which incited it even further. The crowd loved one-sided slaughters.

Lyara grimaced. The Tenderer from the get-go was tough. They wanted to teach the kid a lesson, and she wasn’t going to walk away with all of her limbs intact, not if she wasn’t fast enough.

Oh, you poor little morsel. The announcer licked his lips and clapped loudly. They summon the Tenderer! He’ll make your meat tender, oh he will!

Lyara drifted to the back of the crowd, and made her way around it to the side, where the kitchen’s backdoor was. It would soon open to reveal the Tenderer, one of the inn’s most effective ring-fighters.

The dumpster was now in front of her eyes, and some of the kitchen’s young staff surveyed it with their steel pipes, but she trusted in them gazing at the bloody spectacle when it began than keeping an eye out on the bins with the prizes.

The Tenderer emerged from the kitchen, his namesake in hand; it was a mallet, with jagged edges on both sides. He was a tall teen with an apron dirty with blood, and wore gloves of a dark green color. A white cloth splattered in red covered his face.

Chef assistants and dishwashers came out after him, and held small baskets filled with minced pieces of paper. They threw it in the air around him, and chanted his name as he went by.

Lyara was quick, and as the last of the paper throwers passed, she moved quickly behind their procession, and pressed her back against the wall of the inn. She huddled in the corner between the wall and the dumpster where the bins rested. Nobody had seen her, and everyone’s gaze was on the show now.

I—I changed my mind! the child screamed, and it excited the spectators further. She tried to run, but the crowd pushed her back in the fray, chanted and screamed the name of the clear champion.

The Tenderer’s walk in the ring was slow and methodical, and as he started to circle around the child like a vulture, the crowd laughed harder.

Tenderer! Tenderer! the children chanted, their fists pumping in the air.

The Tenderer lifted his mallet high, and grunted in answer to their bloodlust-filled calls. The mallet came down near the girl, who screamed in fright. The ground cracked where the hammer slammed.

The child on the ring cried, No, please no, I was hungry! Brother, brother, help me!

Lyara stopped paying attention; she ignored the screams, quietly gripped with her hands a bin from the dumpster and lifted it out from there. She dropped it on the ground near her hiding spot and inclined it towards her, gazing at the scraps, at the half-eaten legs of frogs or the heads of fishes and already, her mouth watered.

The screams of the girl in the arena grew shriller, and made her turn an eye to the slaughter at hand. The Tenderizer toyed with her, made mocking gestures and grunted in her direction, scaring her past the tears.

He was enjoying it.

Any half-hearted ‘new guy’ in the city would have tried to help the child. Lyara didn’t bat an eye when the hammer struck the girl on the stomach. No one was going to help her, and if a fool tried, then he’d receive the same treatment.

Oh god, please. The child coughed, and clutched her stomach. Please, help me!

It all fell on deaf ears; it took something more to make such an onslaught stop, and considering the loud cheers from the floors above, it would not be any time soon.

The child’s brother was still trying to push his way through the crowd, rebuked at each attempt with sneers and catcalls.

He circled around the crowd, looking for a way in. There were some stale chips in one of the bins. Since everyone was enjoying the show, she began to munch, quietly. She had to chew properly. It wouldn’t do to make a noise with her mouth open.

There was a shrill cry, a sick snap. One of the girl’s legs now bent at an impossible angle, and she grinned at the show.

Lyara’s skin itched, as an ethereal and half-transparent tendril of fog softly moved in the air, and her breathing froze in her throat.

The fog pushed a small pebble a few inches to the right for just a second, just in time for the girl’s brother to step on it and fall on his back, and at the right angle to make him look past the guards to see her munching.

The boy was desperate enough to know the one thing that would make the fighting stop.

Lyara gripped a slimy bit of food and showed it to him, in an unspoken deal. He could just ignore the girl, his sister, and get some food. It would be a great deal for anyone. Any older boy would have taken the deal, no questions asked.

The child was too new to know you couldn’t cheat the patrons of the Drowned Hangman; she should have realized he still held on to a bit of ‘sentimentality’.

Hey! Look over there! Someone’s stealing from the bins! Look! Look!

The moment the boy spoke those words, the guards turned. Lyara was already dashing towards the other side of the dumpster by then. A rusty pipe came close to pierce her chest, but she sidestepped it, and threw into the teen’s face the slimy scraps of food in her hand.

The boy howled as a piece of chicken bone ended in his eye. Lyara hoped he’d get an infection and die within the next day. There would be one less guard.

Lyara didn’t stop. She jolted away, as fast as her feet carried her. There was no delay, no wait and no fear. She knew the rules better than the rest of them. They caught her and it was time to run. Her right fist slammed against a boy in the crowd who tried to act the hero; she heard the satisfying crunch of a broken nose and moved on.

A few of the crowd still gave chase, and either hoped to steal her scraps or to get some sort of prize for capturing her. She turned back once, threw a garbage sack from a nearby pile on the ground to slow them down, and then returned to her escape.

Let her go! she heard the announcer of the arena scream when she had already crossed the distance from the dumpster to the other side of the street. She’s going into—

Lyara didn’t stop to hear the rest; she turned the corner and dashed across a wet and empty alley, her feet splashing in the puddles. The water was icy cold as it seeped through her old shoes, but she pushed her muscles to the edge until they burned, and she reached for the other side of the dark alley.

She stopped when the light of the Sun Crystals once more shone over her, and eased her beating heart with shallow breaths. The thing left in her hand was a chicken leg. It was cold and slimy, more bone and skin than actual meat, but it was something she could eat.

She sunk her teeth into it, ripped the flesh apart from it, and chewed hungrily.

Some chips and some chicken. This day’s off to a great start, she murmured. Her fingers cold, she exhaled on the remains of her breakfast a cloud of vapor. Her teeth chattered from a sudden shiver; her eyes widened at the sight of her sweat forming snowflakes, while her skin filled with goose bumps.

Child, I have food, a voice filled with melancholy whispered behind her. It was a tender voice, gentle and soothing to hear after the rowdy screams of the Arena crowd and the sneers. The frost ran down her spine as she pulled her body forward.

What little remained of her breakfast slipped from her hands and fell on the ground as giant claws of pale cerulean slammed against the brick walls she had been but a second before. A visage of crooked yellow teeth and beady eyes snarled at her from the alley, which she didn’t remain behind to gaze.

Lyara ran further away, her heart drummed into her chest, and she spun around to check on her Unnatural pursuer only when she was further into the safety of the Sun Crystals’ light.

I. Have. Food. The creature beckoned her closer with its giant claws, afraid of leaving the safety of the alley’s shade for the road bathed by the light. The lower body of the creature resembled a woman, if not for the bones and the pure white skin covered in ice.

Deformed lower limbs of bones and tendrils of flesh twitched as they encountered the line that separated the light from the darkness, and retreated into the safety of the alley rather than risk the sun’s pale reflection.

That had been close. That had