Under the Artist's Loving Hand

   The room is wide, with a low ceiling. It is dark save for the worklamp of an artist at his easel, who is applying the finishing touches to the drawing before him. There is a knock on the door; the artist yells out to come in. The door opens: just a crack at first, to let in a harsh splinter of daylight; and then fully, to silhouette two people standing in the doorway. It is a pair of police officers, federal agents by the look of them. A march hare and a spring chicken; an old grizzled male agent and his young eager female trainee. Mind if we ask you a few questions? They close the door behind them, and it is dark once more.

   They are here investigating a mysterious rash of disappearances, and have targeted the artist as a person of interest in the case. The artist is publishing comic books based around the supposed serial killings. The agents are clearly disgusted with him. They know this type. Scumbag. A local struggling artist who found the oppurtunity to make his big break with the shameless exploitation of his hometown on the news, cashing in and making a quick buck off of others' suffering. They are here to question him because he has something to gain from the disappearances. His alibi is solid, though; he was working in the studio all week, no rests or outside breaks, finishing up the comic based on the disapperence of the victim prior to this one. His voice is low and intimate as he explains the facts. All throughout the questioning he studies the agents' faces intently, as if trying to memorize them.

   He is now working on the comic of the latest disapperence, and was just now interrupted during his drawing of the latest victim. That disapearence had happened not a day ago. She was declared officially missing a few hours after that, which is when the agents got the call to come down from Washington. If the artist was just finishing up, he must have begun drawing the moment he got the news, and must have worked doubletime to get this panel done. Once more, it makes the agents sick that the artist is so quick to jump on the misfortunes of others. He has an airtight alibi, though, so he seems in all other ways entirely innocent of wrongdoing. When it's clear that the agents aren't going to get anything from him, they offer the business card and get up to leave.

   Wait, he calls out. I'm finished with this panel. Wouldn't you like to see my work? 

   He turns the easel around for them. The agents gasp in awe, which causes the artist to smile.

   The drawing before them is of the latest victim in her last known location, waving goodbye to her friends as she walks her bike from the local malt shoppe. His work is actually quite good, his figures have an unsurpassed quality of life and vitality. He is excellent, in fact. The figure of the missing is rendered lovingly, every detail seems to pop out in lifelike splendor. Around her, the figures and the background grow sketchy and hazy, allowing the eye's focus to dwell on the masterwork that is the figure in the foreground, more real than a photograph. It is curious that he could not sell anything before, and that he's squandering his talents on such mediocre comics. Many of the details in the cases are notoriously wrong. A lot of what actually happened to the victims in the comics, the sadistic torture they went through, was lurid speculation, contradicting many publicly-available facts. Sloppy writing, poor research, the names of the friends and family of the victims are almost invariably spelled incorrectly. It would be pure schlock if not for the masterful artwork. It's just a shame the artist doesn't apply himself elsewhere.

   The agents continue to consider the drawing before them; the artist continues to study their faces. The agents scan the drawing in gradually waning fascination. The artist leans forward. The agents lose all interest in the piece. The artist sits back. The agents get up and turn to leave. The artist smiles. The young agent turns back, a flicker of something in her eyes. The artist sits upright and curses.

   The young agent studies the drawing for a few more seconds, as if trying to place something, but shrugs it off. She rejoins the older agent, and they begin making their way across the studio. As they do, the artist looks down at the card, at the names on it. They know too much now, he decides. They suspect something. He sits down before the easel once more and flips to the next panel. The artist carefully writes out both of the agents' names in the top left corner, and begins a new drawing there, spiraling out from the center. The agents, silhouetted there in the doorframe, walking out. The very view that he has at this moment, in fact. In the sun, they are abstract shapes. The larger angular mound of the older agent, the less angular wisp of the younger agent. The artist begins filling in details.

   It is interesting to note that the artist never signs his work. He does not write his own name out on any drawings at all. The only place his name appears in the comic is on the solid crimson cover, which has only that, the title, and issue number card. There is power in names, power in depictions. The artist never puts his name anywhere with a picture, as he dares not bring this power against himself. 

   The door closes, but the artist no longer requires the reference. As he draws, the artist can feel the agent's life energy flowing out of them and into the drawing. Shapes spiderweb from the center, seem to fill themselves up on the canvas, inking in the darkness of the outer edges of the panel. It only pains him that he won't be able to report himself accurately in the next issue. But he will be the last one to see these agents alive. More agents will come after this, more agents will come and question. But the artist feels confident that, after this incident, none will come quite as close to discovering the truth. Now he can play the part, now he can be the hysterical grieving last witness, who has no clue what happened to those poor agents, no clue where they went. Yes, he decides, the attention will be drawn away from him quite sufficiently. Quite sufficiently indeed.