Hi there, Billy Hindel here, the voice of Alice Dyer in the Magnus Protocol, ...
Magnus Archives 10th anniversary. Rusty Quill is hosting a special Magnus live show at the
“upcoming Crossed Wires podcast festival in Sheffield. Join co-creators Jonathan Sins and”
Alexander J. Newell on the 5th of July for a new iteration of our live show, Statement begins, where you can hear fan favourite statements such as Anglefish, Red Live and gain exclusive insights into the creation and history of the show, straight from the creators themselves. You can buy your tickets now including limited numbers of meet and greet tickets from Crossed Wires.live, or the link in the description of this episode. Hi there, Jonathan Sins here, and before today's episode
I wanted to tell you about from the library of Jurgen Leipner, an upcoming the Magnus Archives prequel novel available for pre-order right now at www.rustyquill.com/novel. Return to the world of the Magnus Archives in from the Library of Jurgen Leipner, an official prequel novel written by Nebula, World Fantasy and Aurora award-winning author Pray Me Mohammed with the help of yours truly. From the library of Jurgen Leipner explores an infamous organisation from the Magnus
verse for the first time, the perilous private library of the enigmatic collector Jurgen Leipner.
From the library of Jurgen Leipner, will be published on October 27, 2026 and is available for pre-order now as a hard-back audio book and e-book. Visit www.rustyquill.com/novel for more information. That's Rustyquill.com/novel or click the link in the show notes of this episode. The two theories tale by Ben Foke. Screams of pain, solbs of children, voices raised in grief and are in consuming fear. Stepping through
the ER of the Maucor's Family Hospital is like diving headfirst into the raging depths of a storm swept ocean. Small, unassuming and woefully understaffed, it is not used to such strain. The quick strides of my clogs cement boots squeaking across freshly mocked linoleum,
“the only thing that keeps me from being swept away by the torrent.”
There, the front desk. I wrap my knuckles across wood, but her back is turned. A phone pressed to her ear. Her tone is low and assuring, but beneath the table, fingers tug and tug at a loose string, an ever-increasing stack of intake forms its waiting for attendance. At Emily, I call, then again, louder. The chair swivels and eyes barely register my presence before a clipboard is thrust into my hands. I don't look at it, not yet. Time to continue
onwards. Squeak squeak across the floor. I quickened my pace to avoid a sliding trully. Its occupant and elderly liver-spotted man grimaces in pain, bubbling red burns curl up his limbs practically spilling out the hiss of flames. I drag my eyes away. Onwards, head down, eyes forward, one foot after another. I reach the elevator, a doctor rushes out, a resident scrambling to follow seat. I step past them and inside to tap the button marked B. The metal cage shutters,
then trundles downwards of the shaky pace. You can do this. It is only once I push through the final heavy door and into the cold steel coffin of the morgue that I breathe. A deep, shuddering breath that reminds me all too much of the storm upstairs. I take the liberty of another. Then, gloves on, face shield up. I get to work. You can do this.
“The first body. You must understand, when I say that this was my first day on the job,”
I do not in any way mean that I didn't know what I was doing. No, years of training, toil and sweat had led up to this moment. I had certainly done a couple of autopsys before.
Always a company by an attending physician or a team of other students of course, but I knew what I
was doing. I was a forensic examiner fellow. I taught myself and I knew what I was doing. I opened the freezer door and slid out the first body. The tray it lay on, clicked smoothly into the transition cart, which are then wheeled over to the central examination table.
What had doctor bailed for said before he'd left?
and then the stick to routine, it's a good opportunity to get practice in for when you take over.
“There's a first time for everything, maybe take another look at the cold water case. Just do”
three inspections and call it a day. I'll be back in the morning. Well, here was my opportunity, laughing me in the face. Only three autopsys. Only three bodies. I looked down at the corpse. The flesh on its face was cracked and sunken, twisted from the heat. Blood pulled under blackened cheeks, but freshly shaped sideburns indicated that there had been
life just days, hours before. I had never been good with the freshly dead. His eyes were open,
glassy and staring. The surrounding skin shrunken by the heat was pulled towards across bone like a shoddy taxidermy display. The worst part was that he looked familiar. Morkas was my hometown. The house was sold in the parents were gone, but my memory still popped to the streets. The streets that now burned from the horrible fire. I wondered how many of those memories were left. The public library, my favorite ice cream shop, the restaurants,
the fireplace, the school, had the corpse worked there. Why couldn't I place his face? What did that say about me? Why couldn't I? I stomped on the weathered rubber pedal by my feet. It was a
click and the wear as the overhead mics began to record. I began to cut. First, the shears.
Each article of clothing won by one. Trails as an undergarments came easily, but the shirt. The shirt was melted and fused to the flesh, so caked in ash that the simple bigfoot and
“comic stands I believe in you was hardly visible. My fingers tore at both flesh and fabric as I”
pulled, so I gave it a rest. Mail 6 appears to be in their late 40s. Good, my voice was steady. Signs of hypoxia, modeled skin in the less-chard areas, sucked around the nose and mouth, fixed and dilated pupils. Unflinking, dilated pupils. They looked at me.
I shook my head. Because of death, likely smoke inhalation. Of the second and third degree burns
across the body. I examined the discarded mangled trousers and fished out a twisted pile of leather. Wallet, name, yes, name, legible as Alexander Goodkins. The name didn't ring a bell. Why didn't it ring a bell? Identification concluded. We'll return to gross and histologic examination for further findings. Quick, thorough, and to the point. I scratched the name of the clipboard list of reported missing persons. More bodies would be coming in, and thus the priority
was to identify, not examine. A much simpler task, involved less elbow-deep digging. I could do the more taxing parts when I wasn't alone. The staring dead-eyed pupils reminded me I wasn't alone. I took a deep breath, slid it back on the cart into the freezer and shut the door.
“One down. That wasn't too bad was it? I remember the times when the world moved slower.”
It felt like a dream then. It feels like a dream now. Small pockets of dream in between nightmares. Mom, Dad, my tooth is loose. Nothing but laughs and blue glare from the TV, but I know they heard. I know they heard because the tooth fairy comes when I lose a tooth. Well, not the tooth fairy, but I let them think that I still believe that kid's story. I let them think and I leave the window open for her to flutter in. It's like a game. And when I hear their footsteps across the carpet,
feel their hands slide under my pillow to collect the little pearl, try not to giggle and close my eyes shut the whole time. It reminds me that they hear. The second body. Everyone thinks forensics is just dusting fingerprints and catching the criminal, but more often than not, it's about reading, reading the story of a corpse. The angle of a wound was a gunshot hollow-side or self-inflicted. The contusions on their head are slip and fall or a hammer to the head.
Obviously, some corpses have simple stories to tell than others, especially when I'm only looking for the exposition. The second corpse isn't as lucky as Mr. Goodkins. No wallet or other form of ID, but her face again feels familiar. There aren't even fingers to go off, at least from what
The first responders recovered.
and peeled out from under rubble. I wonder if it left a shadow behind, but the nuclear outlands
“in Hiroshima, but stained of grease, sizzling, dripping grease. I don't have to imagine the stink.”
Maybe the corpse is lucky. Look at that, they don't have to smell it, see it, feel it. A jolt as the heavy steel door clanks open. Someone comes in and slides a new body onto a freezer tray. I don't look up, don't pay them any mind. I'm only going to do three bodies. No more, no less. Before I get decided on which ones, Mr. Goodkins, the mystery woman on the table right now, and either deceased number three or number four,
one of the less burned ones. Or maybe deceased number eight, so chart that it was more of a skeleton.
Surely that would be easier than all the meat. I realize I'm stalling.
“Everyone thinks forensics is about fingerprints, but more often than not, it's about the teeth.”
More crispy in a small town, there was only ever one dental practice. Smiley blood stental. It made things simple enough for free-convents of mass casualty. Not that such thing had ever happened here before. Even if they had, only the charts of specific individuals would be pulled. Those missing or obviously deceased, but with the fire still burning its way through the surrounding forest and a body being found every hour. Well, it was better to be safe than sorry.
Over 30 years of smiles, all pulled and waiting in a dusty paper box for my examination. Crowns, jaw deformities, fillings, teeth loss, tooth shape, x-rays, root structure, hell, I even saw it before and after braces pecking there. 32 fingerprints for each corpse. The corpse. I moved my glove hands towards the corpse's droopy, glooping mouth and prod it testically. Jaws fuse together, as I thought. I take a deep breath and pick up the scalpel.
The lips cut astonishingly similar to the clothing. The flesh stretches and peels ever so slightly before giving way to the cutting blade. Letting flakes of air fried skin, blossomed down the back of the throat, I grabbed oral retractor. One prong under each jaw to private lips open. Only the mouth is too tight to get a good angle. I picked the scalpel back up and carefully carve open the corpse's cheeks. One prong under each jaw and elevate the tissue.
A crank and crank and crank, staring at the widening mask of grinning blood and suck stained a normal. Why does this bother me tonight more than any other night? Why did he have to leave me alone? I lean forward towards the grin. The blood is almost gone now. Something doesn't look right. The smile looks too small. The teeth aren't connected to the gums. The roots hanging suspended midair. Glitz of wires sticking and lacing through gafing
holes in the gums crimson droplet stick to it like dew in a spider web. I had the normal metal obstruction in the mouth. Then floss like strands piercing through the gums in multiple areas, wrapping around that it hits me. Baby teeth. I am looking at baby teeth.
“I remember being so proud of my loose teeth. I would tell everyone about them.”
The head librarian with her shrewd glasses but kind smile. The ice cream scooper with his useful face and crooked grin. The principal, even though he would just press his mouth tighter and tell me to hurry on, everyone. Soon my friends joined in, a bragging competition of sorts. They laughed and called us cute but I prided myself on being a trendsetter. The two fairies apprentice they called me. Who called me that? Soon my entire class joined in. We just wanted
to share our smiles with the world. The third body. It is long into the night before I return
to the examination room. I was hours of talking to the police, phoning in the homicide division, explaining the situation to "prying curious stuff" but mostly I was sitting in the dark hallway of an empty wing away from the storm and away from the fire and most importantly away from the
Teeth.
The woman on the table, Mr. Goodkins, half hanging out of his homey freezer,
“mouth a wrench to skew and teeth glinting. It was the first ink I checked. The same as corpse number two,”
teeth gone. Ripped forcibly out likely by pliers. In their gaping blood-dried holes, a tasteful reconstruction, metal fishing line and hooks thoughtfully wrenched this way and that around a central hidden pearl. Baby teeth. Baby teeth. A bed if I check the other freezes, I will find the same. I take the deepest breath of my life. Eyes tightly shut. One more body, one more body. My feet track me to freeze a number eight. It slides open,
wheels screeching like nails on a chalkboard. The most shard body of the mall. The heart of the flames where it all started barely recovered by the firemen. They're investigating for potential signs of us and now. What story does this corpse tell? Do the one torn fingernail speak to insanity? Do
“it's wide yawning eye sockets whisper of a watchful patient gaze? An artist's appreciation?”
Effort spent positioning the corpse is just right as to look like an accident amid the blaze. Does it's grinning skeletal to small smile, greeting old friend? The two fairy's apprentice they called me? Who's grinning is that? I look at the baby teeth. Tiny and innocent despite their yellowing tinge. I look down at the dental record in my hand. My dental record pulled from the files. I do all the measurements, all of the testing, but I already know. A footstep on the carpet, a hand
owned of my pillow, an open window, then my teeth. He has my teeth.
Your smile lit up the room? You're always beaming no matter the circumstances.
My little trend setter. I'm so glad I could be your tooth fairy.
“The Magnus Protocol is a podcast distributed by Rusty Quill and licensed under a creative”
commons attribution non-commercial share alike for point ointinational license. To subscribe, view associated materials or join our Patreon visit RustyQuill.com, rate and reveals online, tweet us at the RustyQuill, visit us on Facebook or email us via [email protected]. Thanks for listening. If booking.com boosts the Enferinghouse Guns, but when the Les Mande Replaine had
Hutter's kaboothlider, Moment Mark on TimCom yet. If you're flexible? Oh, super, plus Amara's the phone. Boking.com, booking. Yeah, you were too far from the book. You were too much to leave. Billy Hindle here, the voice of Alice in the Magnus Protocol, and I'm here to tell you about
from the library of Jurgen Lightner, an upcoming novel available for pre-order right now at RustyQuill.com/novel. We turn to the world of the Magnus Archives, in from the library of Jurgen Lightner, an official prequel novel written by Nebula, world fantasy and aurora award-winning author creamy Mohammed, with the help of the Magnus Archives own writer and lead voice Jonathan Sims,
from the library of Jurgen Lightner, explores an infamous organization from the Magnus First,
for the first time, the perilous private library of the enigmatic collector Jurgen Lightner, where occult books are guarded and researched at a fatal cost. Lightner's library keeps the dangers of these books in check and there would be readers safe or so lightner claims. For two of Lightner's employees, the risks are worth it. For Hugh Franklin, the library is a place to belong for Sebastian Everett. The library is an opportunity to indulge arcane ambitions,
though there are ten years at the library where years apart, Hugh and Sebastian's stories unfold in parallel, and their footsteps echo down the same eerie aisles, caught in a web spun long before either Everett the name Jurgen Lightner. Will they find a way out? Or will the library consume them before it's too late? From the library of Jurgen Lightner, will be published on October 26, and is available for pre-order now, visit RustyQuill.com/novel for more information.
