"Charles, darling." Twain grinned at his companion. "You ask all the right questions!"

~~~

[color=00aeef][i]Halfway across the world. A man stopped dead in his tracks.[/i][/color]

~~~

"The symbol is a Mage-Mark or Wizards rune or whatever. It is the personal symbol of a magic-user."

~~~

[color=00aeef][i]"You will have to excuse me." The man made swift and appropriate excuses and returned to his office.[/i][/color]

~~~

"Mikkel, as you have correctly discerned, was certainly attached...."

~~~

[color=00aeef][i]The man was back in his study. He shut down all the electronics, ripped cables from their outlets, and shoved all the furniture to the perimeter of the room. In his haste he spilled the cold up of coffee that had been sitting on the desk, it stained the rug. No matter, the man simply tore away the rug, exposing the wooden floor completely... 

There were no lights on, but with a word, [b]agni[/b], the candles set upon the high shelves in the room caught flame. The candlelight revealed a white circle sketched onto the floor... Or did the strange chalk that drew the symbols glow with their own light?

The man was not alone. In the center of the circle was an eerie figure, white like the chalk on the ground, but transparent. He hugged himself, the white shade was naked, you could see burn makes on his ethereal flesh, and in the center of his chest there was a nail embedded, around the nail the nail was a glowing red chord that floated and wound around him and floated in the air... [/i][/color]

~~~

"Attached to... someone..."

~~~

[color=00aeef][i]... The other end of the line wound around the wrist of the man.[/i][/color]

~~~

"This ritual binds the soul to the Mage or Wizard..." Twain touched the frayed red string... "So, they have this set up, so that when this guy dies, instead of wandering around and haunting this place until he gets bored and wanders into the white light... Snap. His spirit goes to the guy who cast the spell." He touched the symbol. "This guy, or gal, whomever cast it up." 

~~~

[color=00aeef][i]"Mikkel--" The mages voice caught in his throat. Shock and Sorrow possessed him and he was unable to say anymore.

"I'm so cold..." The ghost shivered. "... So... Cold..."

"Tell me..." The man choked, but his voice resolved, he commanded the spirit clearly now. "Tell me everything you saw."[/i][/color]

~~~

"The problem for us is that, now he knows whatever Mikkel knew before he died... Fuck. I hate when they know we are onto them before we know who they are!" 

He looked around and began helping to pack up. The other members of MERCY joined in. 

"Yeah, good idea, keep the body for science."

"They might send in a clean up crew now, or, maybe they have something built in here in case things went wrong... Cover their tracks..." Twain could not trust even the earth they stood upon. 

~~~ 

[color=00aeef][i]"P-Please it's so cold. Just let me go to hell, where it's warm. I'm so so cold..." 

The man paused. 

"I'm sorry. It isn't like that at all." Then with a knife, he cut the glowing red string from his wrist. 

Mikkel simply vanished. The candles blew out. And the man was alone. [/i][/color]