The Omission Index, Ch 12: The Charisma Drain Pt. 3

The hushed, literary reverence of the Greenwich Village bookstore, with its scent of old paper and brewing coffee, was a fragile veneer about to be ripped apart by a psychic assault and the necessary, brutal ballet of SHEPARD's intervention.

Hale sat with a lukewarm cup of tea he didn't want at a small table near the front window. He seemed to be looking at a display of new poetry books. In reality, his senses were stretched tight, like a mental web spread across the cozy, book-lined space, focused intently on Marcus Bell. The young playwright and performer was currently in a lively, if slightly nervous, conversation with the bookstore owner, a kindly looking woman in a flour-dusted apron. They were near a small, cleared area where his reading was scheduled to start in less than ten minutes. Bell's aura, a bright mix of smart energy and pre-performance jitters, pulsed like a beacon in Hale's awareness.

Kwan was deeper in the store, browsing the philosophy section. He looked like a normal customer but was perfectly placed to watch the main aisle and anyone approaching Bell from the back. Outside, Hale could just see the reassuringly solid, though deliberately low-key, presence of Knopff hanging around near a newspaper stand across the street, a silent, human guard. Reid, Hale knew, was parked a block away in their unmarked van.

The sensitive SHEPARD equipment hummed softly, watching ambient mental energies and coordinating with the two plainclothes NYPD officers they'd reluctantly brought in for backup. Their involvement was a carefully managed dance of who had authority and what they needed to know. Director Cromwell had been clear: control the situation, keep civilians safe, and bring in the asset – the Leech. No excuses.

The Leech, the anonymous figure Hale had noticed as they entered the store minutes ago, was currently pretending to be interested in a shelf of old art books. Their movements were slow, careful, almost lazy. But Hale felt the shift, the subtle, almost unnoticeable tightening of their mental focus. It was like watching a predator slowly get ready to pounce, muscles tensing under a deceptively calm appearance.

The Leech's own aura was a murky, unclear thing, maybe deliberately dampened, or simply empty by nature. But the tendril of focused intent now reaching towards Marcus Bell was anything but. It was sharp, cold, and intensely greedy.

Hale took a slow sip of his tea. His heart rate sped up a bit. He felt the first, almost hesitant mental touch as the Leech's focused envy brushed against Bell's bright energy field. Not an attack. Not yet. A tentative mental brush against Bell's aura, testing.

Bell, deep in conversation, frowned slightly. It was a momentary, almost unnoticeable break in his lively expression, as if a stray, unpleasant thought had just passed through his mind. He shook his head, then laughed at something the bookstore owner said. The flicker of unease was gone as quickly as it had appeared. But Hale had felt it. The connection was being made.

He subtly pressed his comm. "Kwan, subject is making their move. South-east corner, art books. Visual on Bell."

"Copy, Hale. Watching," Kwan's voice, calm and steady, murmured in his earbud.

The Leech began to drift, almost casually, from the art section. They moved along a narrow aisle lined with biographies. Their path crossed with the area where Bell was standing. They paused near a display of local authors, picked up a book, and flipped through it with pretended interest. Their head was angled slightly. Their attention, Hale knew, was entirely on Marcus Bell. The mental tendril extended further, stronger now, wrapping around Bell's aura like an invisible, tightening vine.

Hale felt the shift, the sickening lurch in the mental atmosphere as the drain began. Not the usual violent tear. This... a subtle siphoning. He could feel the Leech drawing on Bell's unique intellectual fire, that brilliant, too-smart spark of creative genius. It was like watching a bright color being slowly drained from a painting, leaving behind a dull, faded copy. At the same time, he sensed a faint, almost joyful surge in the Leech's own murky aura, a brief, stolen warmth, a fleeting taste of a brilliance they could never truly have.

Marcus Bell faltered in the middle of a sentence. His lively gestures stopped. A look of deep confusion, then a sudden, almost childlike bewilderment, washed over his face. He blinked, his eyes losing their earlier sharp focus. "I… I'm sorry," he stammered. His voice suddenly lacked its earlier confident rhythm and sounded thin, uncertain. "I… what was I saying?" He looked around, a dawning panic in his eyes, as if he'd suddenly found himself in an unfamiliar room. The thread of his thoughts, his very being, was unraveling.

The bookstore owner looked at him with concern. "Marcus? Are you alright, dear? You look a little pale."

"Pale doesn't cover it," Hale muttered into his comm, already pushing back his chair. "Kwan, engage. Now. Subject is actively draining Bell."

He saw Kwan move, stepping out from the philosophy aisle with a calm, purposeful stride. He angled to intercept the Leech, who was now only a few feet from Bell, their expression one of intense, almost vampire-like concentration. Hale moved at the same time, cutting off any possible escape route towards the front of the store. The few other customers in the store, mostly lost in their books, hadn't yet noticed anything wrong. But the bookstore owner was now looking from Bell to the approaching Leech with growing alarm.

"Excuse me," Kwan said, his voice polite but firm, stepping directly into the Leech's path. "I think you dropped this." He held out a generic bookmark he'd taken from a display, a simple, harmless excuse.

The Leech startled. Their intense focus on Bell broke for a split second. Hale felt the mental siphon stutter, then weaken. The Leech looked up at Kwan. Their eyes – those burning, envious eyes Hale remembered from Juliana Legrand's fragmented mental imprint – widened slightly, first in annoyance. Then, as they noticed Kwan's calm but unyielding presence, and perhaps Hale moving in from their side, a flicker of something else. Recognition? Fear?

"I… I didn't drop anything," the Leech said. Their voice was surprisingly bland, completely lacking the intellectual fire they had been trying to steal from Bell only moments before. They tried to step around Kwan.

"I believe you did," Kwan insisted, not moving, his body subtly blocking their path.

Marcus Bell, meanwhile, swayed on his feet, his hand going to his head. "I… I don't feel so good," he mumbled, his voice slurred. The bright energy Hale had sensed from him earlier was now dim, flickering like a dying ember.

"It's them, Kwan," Hale said, his voice low and hard as he came up beside his partner. He effectively boxed the Leech in against a towering shelf of literary fiction. "This is our unsub."

The Leech's eyes darted between Hale and Kwan. The bland mask began to crack, revealing a raw, cornered animal desperation. "I don't know what you're talking about," they hissed. Their voice took on a sharper, more defensive edge. "I'm just browsing."

"Your browsing days are over," Hale stated. He could feel the leftover mental energy of the stolen talent, Bell's intellectual spark, clinging to the Leech's aura like a cheap, ill-fitting suit. It was already beginning to fade. The borrowed spark in Kirby's eyes... gone. Just a hollow stare.

Suddenly, the Leech lunged. Not at Hale or Kwan, but sideways, trying to bolt down a narrow adjoining aisle. They knocked over a rotating display of paperbacks in a clattering, messy explosion. They were surprisingly quick, fueled by a desperate, wiry energy.

"Knopff, subject trying to flee, heading west aisle towards rear exit!" Hale snapped into his comm, already moving to intercept.

The bookstore owner shrieked. Patrons looked up, startled, confused, their quiet reading shattered. Chaos erupted in the small space. Books tumbled from shelves as the Leech scrambled, shoving people aside. Hale saw a flash of something in their hand – not a weapon, but a small, heavy hardback book, used like a club. They swung it wildly at a startled elderly man who got in their way.

Kwan, with a shout of warning, moved to shield the old man. He took the brunt of the book's impact on his forearm with a dull thud. He grunted in pain but didn't stumble, using his body to push the Leech back towards Hale.

The sudden power from Bell's stolen intellect seemed to give the Leech an unnatural, though short-lived, burst of cleverness and agility. They twisted, ducked under Hale's grasping hand, and made a dash for a narrow staff-only door at the very back of the store – a door Hale hadn't even noticed on his first check.

"Damn it!" Hale cursed, pushing past a toppled display of poetry books. The mental feedback from the panicked civilians was a jarring, confusing wave. He could hear Knopff's heavy footsteps pounding on the sidewalk outside, Reid's voice in his earbud confirming the perimeter was locked down.

The Leech yanked open the staff door and disappeared into the dim hallway beyond. Hale was right behind them. The scent of fear and desperation now hung thick in the air, mingling with the dust and old paper.

The staff hallway was a narrow, poorly lit tunnel, lined with overflowing boxes of books and forgotten cleaning supplies. It stank of mildew and something vaguely chemical.

Hale could hear the Leech's ragged breathing and frantic footsteps just ahead, then a crash as they stumbled over a misplaced mop bucket. He rounded the corner just as they were scrambling back to their feet, their eyes wild, trapped. The hallway ended in a heavy, steel-reinforced fire door – a dead end. Knopff's solid form, lit from behind by the alleyway beyond, now completely filled that exit. He stood with his arms crossed, an expression of grim satisfaction on his face.

"Going somewhere?" Knopff's voice rumbled, a sound that promised no easy escape.

The Leech spun around, their chest heaving, seeing Hale blocking the other end of the hallway. They were cornered. The short burst of stolen agility and cleverness was gone, replaced by a raw, animal-like panic. For a moment, Hale thought they might try to fight, to lash out again, but the fight seemed to drain out of them as quickly as the stolen talents always did. Their shoulders slumped. The fight was over.

Kwan appeared behind Hale. His face was tight with pain from his bruised forearm, but his gaze was steady. Reid followed a moment later. His expression was a mixture of professional curiosity and concern, his hand already reaching for the array of sensors on his belt. The local NYPD officers Knopff had been coordinating were securing the alleyway entrance. Their presence was a more visible, if less understanding, authority.

"It's over," Hale said, his voice quiet but firm. He approached the Leech slowly, hands open, not threatening. "There's nowhere to go."

The Leech didn't speak, just stared at him. Their eyes were filled with a storm of emotions – fear, yes, but also a deep, bottomless despair, and beneath it all, that familiar, corrosive acid of envy, now turned inwards, self-consuming.

As Kwan moved to gently but firmly apply the specialized SHEPARD restraints, Hale reached out, not physically, but with his senses. This was the moment he'd been waiting for, the chance for a direct, unfiltered mental read, a deep dive into the mind of this unique, tragic predator. He braced himself.

The instant his mind made contact, he was hit with the full, overwhelming force of it. It wasn't like the echo of a past event; this was a live, raw, screaming flood of pure, unadulterated need.

Lifetime of less-than. Dreams deferred. Watched others... felt undeserved. Failed auditions. Harsh words echoing. Gnawing comparison. Empty. Then the drain. Juliana's light... sunshine after dark. Anton's wit... a borrowed shield. Li Chen's music... tasted, never owned. Bell's fire... another try. But the high... short. Borrowed clothes. Always aware of the lack. Back to the hunt. Addictive. Spiral. Leech turning... something else.

Then came the envy, a monstrous, green-eyed beast that had consumed their soul. It wasn't just a passive wishing; it was an active, predatory desire to possess, to be what others were, if only for a fleeting moment. He felt the thrill of the first accidental drain, the dawning realization of their terrible gift, the intoxicating rush of borrowed brilliance.

But the 'high,' Hale understood with sickening clarity, was always short-lived. The stolen talents, like ill-fitting clothes, never truly belonged. They faded quickly, leaving the Leech even more aware of their own inherent lack, driving them back to the hunt with an ever-increasing desperation. It was a cycle of addiction, a desperate craving for something they could only borrow, never own.

No sadism. Just a desperate hunger. Victims... not people. Sources.

Hale also gained a clearer understanding of the mental mechanism. It was an empathic ability twisted, perverted. The Leech could tune themselves to the specific emotional and intellectual frequencies of their target's core talent, latching on with an intense, focused desire, and then… pulling.

Not a mind-meld. Not a body-snatch. The Leech didn't learn the talent; they simply wore it, briefly, until it disappeared.

He pulled back, gasping slightly. The sheer weight of the Leech's lifelong despair and corrosive envy left him feeling mentally bruised and deeply, profoundly weary. The Leech, now restrained, simply stared at the floor. Their face was a mask of utter desolation. The fight, the brief borrowed spark, all of it was gone, leaving only the empty husk.

Kwan was already with Marcus Bell back in the main part of the bookstore, which was now a chaotic scene of shocked patrons and arriving paramedics. Hale could hear Kwan's low, calming voice. The gentle rhythm of his Analeptic Hymn was likely already at work, trying to soothe Bell's frayed nerves and assess the damage. The young playwright was slumped in a chair, looking dazed and utterly bewildered. His earlier vibrant energy was almost completely extinguished. He kept trying to speak, to explain what had happened, but the words wouldn't form. His brilliant mind was now a confusing fog. The theft had been brutally effective.

Reid stepped forward, adjusting the sensors on the Leech, muttering to himself, "Resonance…mimicry…not a true imprint. Temporary. Leaves a void." He glanced towards Marcus Bell. "The victim's exhibiting classic symptoms of acute attribute negation. Recovery prognosis… uncertain without knowing the full extent of the siphoning or the Leech's maximum duration. We'll need to get them both to a secure facility for full assessment."

Hale nodded, rubbing his temples. The immediate threat was neutralized. The Leech – he finally registered their name from the ID Knopff had retrieved from their wallet, Alex Kirby – was just another broken individual now, another asset for SHEPARD to catalog, study, and contain. But the cost, the string of shattered careers and stolen dreams, was a heavy one.

***

The SHEPARD safe house, a plain Brooklyn brownstone, felt worlds away from the Greenwich Village chaos. Mental leftovers from the afternoon clung to Kwan like the city's humid air. He sat in the simply furnished room, surrounded only by quiet equipment hums and distant sirens.

Marcus Bell was next door, lightly sedated, with a SHEPARD medic monitoring him. The young playwright had been dazed, confused, his brilliant mind struggling to understand the sudden emptiness where his words and wit had been.

Kwan had spent an hour with Bell after the incident, using his Analeptic Hymn to calm the immediate panic, slow the racing pulse, ease the frantic terror. But the deeper wound—the mental theft—was beyond his power to heal quickly. Bell kept asking, voice thin and weak, "What happened to me? I can't… I can't think. The words… they're gone."

He'd offered the standard SHEPARD comfort about temporary confusion, shock effects, the need for rest. But even speaking them, he knew they weren't enough. This wasn't shock. Something had been stolen.

Physical wounds he understood—bullet scars, knife cuts, decay. He'd seen plenty. But this emptiness felt different. Worse somehow. Juliana's smile had become a ghost. Anton's laughter, silence. Li Chen's music, unheard. And now Bell's words, scattered like leaves in wind.

SHEPARD protocol rarely allowed civilian victim follow-up beyond immediate crisis control. But Kwan had quietly requested updates on their conditions through Reid, plus any technical insights about possible recovery. Reid's initial feedback was grim: stolen talents didn't return when the Leech's temporary 'high' faded. They were simply gone, leaving permanent loss—mental amputation. Perhaps intensive therapy might rebuild some version of their former selves, but the stolen spark, that unique natural brilliance? That seemed lost forever.

Knopff entered, looking tired but grimly satisfied. He dropped a sterile evidence bag containing Kirby's personal effects onto the table. "Asset Kirby is processed and prepped for Blackwood Sanction transport," he reported in his gravelly rumble. "Didn't fight once the... shine wore off. Just sat there looking like a burst balloon. Pathetic."

Kwan nodded. Pathetic, yes. And tragic. He couldn't shake the image of Alex Kirby, cuffed and hopeless, Bell's brief stolen fire already gone from their eyes. Only that familiar, consuming emptiness remained—a lifetime of envy and inadequacy ending in this destructive cycle.

Reid entered with his report, expression thoughtful. "Preliminary analysis of Kirby's energy signature is fascinating, in a horrifying way," he began, pulling up complex graphs and waveforms. "Highly specialized empathic resonance. Kirby creates focused psychic connection, identifies the target's desired talent frequency—charisma, wit, creative flow—then piggybacks on their neural pathways, siphoning that specific energetic pattern. The process causes mental scarring, disruption that makes reconnection extremely difficult."

"Can it be reversed?" Kwan asked, dreading the answer.

Reid pursed his lips. "Theoretically, perhaps. If we could somehow re-establish the victim's original energetic resonance, stimulate those pathways... but the scarring is like a severed nerve. We might teach compensation, build new pathways, but restoring the original talent?" He shook his head. "I wouldn't be optimistic."

Hale entered, looking as drained as Kwan felt. The mental toll was clear in the tired lines around his eyes. He'd been overseeing Kirby's initial questioning—though 'questioning' was generous for what had likely been a quiet probe of a shattered mind.

"Kirby's talking," Hale said quietly. "Or at least not resisting. Confirmed the other victims. No grand plan, no conspiracy beyond desperate need. They saw talent, wanted to feel it, even briefly. Claims they thought they were just borrowing skills, but it was always short-lived. They knew the drain was harmful but couldn't stop. Classic addiction—the worse they felt, the more they needed to steal."

The four stood in weary silence. Knopff the enforcer, ensuring physical capture. Reid the analyst, decoding the how and why. Hale the psychic reader, exploring disturbed minds. And Kwan, the shepherd, left to witness the human cost and care for the wounded.

"SHEPARD's managing Bell's story," Reid said, glancing at his datapad. "Sudden severe viral infection affecting brain function. Full recovery expected, but he'll need extended time away from public life. Same cover we used for Legrand, Petrov, and Chen. Plausible deniability that protects reputations while burying truth."

Kwan looked out at the city's uncaring lights. Another case closed, another blink in the darkness. The invisible wounds accumulated—stolen light, broken dreams, questions about whether they were truly making a difference or just concealing an ever-growing pile of unexplainable dust under an ever-larger, more knowing rug.

"Wheels up at 0600," Hale announced. "Cromwell wants full debrief back in Oregon."

Kwan nodded. Back to Oregon, until the next telex message, the next unusual event, the next glimpse into humanity's strange potential and its darkest forms. The work was necessary—he knew that. But tonight, the weight of its moral complexities felt particularly heavy on his shoulders.

***