First Encounter
Agent Jon James had thought he had seen it all. After 12 years as a beat cop in one of the nation's most violent cities, he had grown accustom to murder, rape and other depravities, that is until about 5 years ago working a missing person's case he stumbled across the works of Max Von Crucial.
A young woman, 28 and her boyfriend had hired Von Crucial out of the yellow pages to perform for a mutual friend at a birthday celebration. Nobody knows what happened to the other 12 guests at the party, their cases are still open, open but cold. The young man and woman however, had managed to hide in a closet during the show.
We took their statements and initially, had considered them to be suspects. It was all too far fetched but they both had the same story, with too much detail to be have been contrived. Either these two were the world's best liars, or they were telling the truth. They both we able to describe detail by detail how the guest of honor, a young woman named Debbie Fields had been hypnotized and then essentially dismantled during the magic act. They described in detail how instead of reconstructing the girl and ending the illusion, Von Crucial mixed her parts in ways that were impossible. Her hands and feet were switched, as was her hips replaced facing the wrong way, so that her buttocks faced forward along with her upper torso. They explained in detail how the assistant shot the girl with a beam of light and saw her shrink to the size of a small child's doll and then put into a glass container and taken to another room. When they suspected something was very wrong with the show, the young man called 911 but when the police arrived, Von Crucial and his assistant used the beam of light to shrink the remaining people at the party to the size of dolls and herded them into crates. Peering through a crack in the door, the young man saw how they then sealed the crates and slipped through a large white disk, stopping only to make eye contact with the young man and winking.
We took the two into custody and after testimony by two officers who had arrived to see the suspect and his assistant disappear into the white disk we no longer suspected them, but we did place them into protective custody while we started re-examining some cold missing persons cases going back 5 years.
John and Cindy were a cute couple, we set them up with new id's and got them into one of our safe houses were have in one of the better neighborhoods. The good news was they could id Von Crucial, the bad news, it turns out Von Crucial does not like to leave loose ends.
We had to go to the tape to get the full story of what happened and the sad and improbable ending.
After two months of being in the program, John felt confident that the monster had moved on and he and Cindy were safe, or as safe as they could be. They had new identities now, he now goes by the name of James and Cindy, now goes by Sherry and oh yeah, they're married now. John smiled as he thought about how this bizarre chain of events had resulted in their marriage. But still, he couldn't get that cold icy stare out of his mind.
One day after returning from the gym, John heard a sound and felt a cool chill in the air of their suburban ranch home. Spinning, he came fact to face to the man who had been haunting his nightmares for the past two months. Von Crucial smiled as he pointed at John which surprisingly made him feel suddenly at ease
"You didn't think you would get away did you?"
John was frozen. He felt no fear but was fully aware of what was happening.
Suddenly, Cindy came the room from the garage with an armload of groceries.
Von Crucial pointed a finger at her and the groceries fell to the ground, an orange rolled across the floor and stopped at Von Crucial's feet.
"Come, stand by your beloved" Von Crucial said
Cindy obeyed, and stood at his side facing Von Crucial.
"You two have caused me some frustration" he said. "This young detective you are working with, he is let's say causing me some financial troubles."
Cindy, like John felt no fear but being fully conscious of the situation had a growing sense of concern.
"Sorry if I'm not much for chit chat, but in my business, time is money" Von Crucial said. "What am I going to do with you two? Your friends brought me a pretty penny and you do come from the same lot, albeit a few weeks delayed."
"The problem I have is because of the delay I had one order canceled so, for one of you, this is your lucky day or as lucky as it can get anyway!" and he laughed.
Cindy was trying to understand what he was talking about. It was almost as if he considered them to be a commodity, was the whole story behind this some sort of human trafficking scam?
"Sort of" Von Crucial said.
Cindy looked surprised
"What you didn't think I could read minds too?" Von Crucial said and laughed again.
"Enough of the niceties" he said, his mood changing.
He pointed at John and John felt his clothes disappear, the cool air conditioned air hitting his bare chest and backside.
Von Crucial then pointed at Cindy and she too felt her clothes disappear. He stood there for a moment and then began a soft chant. John felt his face go numb and momentarily he had feeling of vertigo as his point of view shifted slightly. He felt the same numb feeling in his groin as he felt without pain the sense of skin being pulled and stretched.
Pausing, Von Crucial then focused on Cindy. She too felt her face go numb but not before she felt a tingling in her mouth and the same numbness in her crotch and groin.
