The role of the detective has changed drastically in the modern, unveiled world. Once romanticized as trench-coated investigators stalking dim alleyways and candlelit ruins in search of monsters and curses, many occult detectives now spend their days tracing encrypted chatrooms, investigating digital hauntings, and navigating increasingly restrictive government oversight.
Few know this better than Hermes Magnus, a veteran private investigator with over three decades of experience dealing with anomalous disappearances, rogue thaumaturges, and hauntings. Hermes remains one of the few independent detectives still operating openly within unveiled circles.
We met in a dim riverside café in London under heavy rain. Hermes arrived late, carrying a cigarette case made of black iron and a leather folder filled with handwritten notes.
Jeremy Kovack
What troubles occult detectives today?
Hermes Magnus
The nature of anomalies today is different. More and more surveillance is being controlled by those [world authorities] up top, and it is becoming harder for private investigators in this [unveiled] spheres to do their jobs without the immediate intervention of the authorities.
[…] This doesn’t just go for the UK. The US, China, India, and even Afghanistan suffer from this. We are living in a digital age, as you would know. Information isn't stored in stacks of paper anymore; you have to condense everything into computer networks. […] Just as monsters once roamed our forest at night, so too do they now stalk through these new dark woods. This is a new playing ground for these beings. And this is the role many occult detectives appear to have taken now: online investigators.
Jeremy Kovack
Do on-the-field private investigators still exist then?
Hermes Magnus
Of course, they do. The reason people like us exist is that if you call the government for help, they’ll seize any assets they deem useful or dangerous. Artifacts, documents, properties, sometimes even people. […] At the end of the day, their job is to protect and control. For-hire investigators like me only do what we’re told to do. For a price, of course.
Jeremy Kovack
How do you deal with the authorities then?
Hermes Magnus
By being careful. Do things by the book, never step over the law. At least, don’t do it in a way that can lead to disastrous consequences. When in Rome, do as the Romans do.
I myself come from a long line of thaumaturge detectives. It’s the reason why I have a name like ‘Hermes Magnus’: it’s a stage name that ensures not even spirits could track me. You always have to be careful.
Jeremy Kovack
Do you have any detective stories you could share with us?
Hermes Magnus
Not much I can legally divulge. You know the nature of my job.
Jeremy Kovack
Of course.
Hermes Magnus
Hm… There is one story.
Jeremy Kovack
Do tell.
Hermes Magnus
[…] Back in 1994, on the western Irish coast. There used to be rumours of a monster called the Bánánach that came for children who had lost their names, and devoured them whole. The rumour had persisted for around two years by that point, and nobody could prove such a thing existed.
I took on the investigation after MI13 and the New Dawn Initiative had already given up. There wasn’t any evidence of children going missing. But of course there wasn’t. Those children who vanished never had names to begin with. They weren’t written in any records, as if they had never existed at all. But they did exist.
Jeremy Kovack
How could you tell?
Hermes Magnus
I found evidence of them. Clothes left on the ground. School bags filled with freshly bought supplies. School classes with empty seats nobody seemed capable of acknowledging for too long. Finding the cause of these disappearances was… an adventure, to say the least. After months of trailing, I finally found it: the Bánánach.
[…] Sorry. I need a [break].
Jeremy Kovack
Of course.
Hermes Magnus takes a 2-minute break to smoke a cigarette.
Hermes Magnus
The Bánánach was… not what I expected. It was a woman. Or rather, she used to be one. Before she became drunk off her own magic like a bacchanal, drinking herself to death over the loss of her two children. Their names were forgotten, too, unfortunately. It was as if they had never existed; they became part of an antimeme.
She wandered the country in search of them, and those she took away became infected by her spell. Their records would unravel, turning memories into lies. It was a kind of nontropic effect that made people unconsciously ignore it, like how the brain filters out the sight of your own nose. Except instead of a nose it was […] people. That was the frightening thing, that reality itself was so eager to help her.
Jeremy Kovack
What happened in the end?
Hermes Magnus
My associates and I hunted it down. And we killed her. It was the only way we could verify she stayed dead. If we kept her alive, eventually we wouldn’t know she was even there anymore. That’s the nature of antimemes. They try their best to censor themselves from humans and the memories we hold dear. Our brains refuse to acknowledge their existence; it's total and complete invisibility.
Hermes remained silent after that. Rain tapped softly against the café windows while somewhere beyond the fogged glass, London traffic moved like blurred lanterns through the night.
When asked whether occult detectives still had a place in the modern unveiled world, Hermes only laughed quietly before lighting another cigarette.
