At 2:00 pm was the new designated time for the group to meet once again in the parlor of Lady Eve's manor. Those who had chosen to leave for the night and spend their time in a hotel were once again welcomed at the door by none other than the manor's nameless butler. At least he hadn't introduced himself at any point, and neither the Lady nor her delinquent son had seen fit to refer to him by name in anybody's presence, so that was that. As for those who had agreed to stay overnight in the manor proper, they had been allowed to sleep in for as long as they liked and were provided with a hearty brunch as soon as they woke. Eve and Sebastian had been conspicuously absent for the beginning of the day, all their needs attended to by the butler, who while in theory seemed to be overworked raised nary a single complaint and remained quite composed. If he were flustered in the least he hid it exceptionally well.

When the time came for everyone's first official meeting, and not a second sooner, did the Lady make her presence known with Sebastian tailing behind her. She carried herself as composed and important as ever, whilst the son kept his hands in his pockets and looked as though he'd much rather be anyplace else. "Splendid afternoon, my esteemed guests," the Lady practically sang as she took her seat at the head of the parlor table. When the butler offered her a beverage, she politely declined.

"Sup?" Seb asked, plopping into a couch cushion without any sort of grace or measure. His mother was noticeably frustrated, but did not address his attitude.

"I am eager to call to order the first meeting of the employees under Hellpact LLC. A bit on the nose I know, but I wanted to have a bit of fun with this enterprise, yes?" She wiggled her finger and several distortions in space appeared, one directly in front of each person present. They were tears in space, rifts perfectly identical to the one Seb had used to produce a brain the present night. If they were to reach into these distortions, everyone would find tucked away inside a dossier, a file containing numerous newspaper clippings and some pages printed off from the internet. Everyone's folder was perfectly identical in its contents.

"This is your first assignment," Eve began, opening up her own folder. "A mother and father reported their three children missing, swept away in the middle of the night four days ago, with nary a trace. All doors and windows locked from the inside, no signs of a struggle; one moment they were present and the next they were gone." The newspaper article was from the 8th page, obviously not something the reporters viewed as being important enough for the big stories. Among the printouts were photos taken of the family: Jace and Shania Jackson, ages 42 and 39 respectively, and their three children: Tania (14), Kalel (10), and Stevie (4). For all intents and purposes they looked to be a happy and well adjusted middle class black American family.

She had risen early for breakfast, but that had turned out not to be needed. Still, there was nothing wrong with a refreshing continental to start the day off right. A cup of coffee, unlimited refills, that was very nice, a blueberry muffin, croissant and an orange. Not a whole lot, but she was a girl who had grown up used to full Englishes- anything smaller than a plate literally overflowing with food was a 'small' breakfast to her. When it turned out they were not to be summoned until later, she returned to her room, glad to have packed books and her laptop. She checked the world news, and then did a little idle digging.

So, it seemed that some of her thoughts had been correct. Devyn was a journalist. Hard hitting investigative journalist, lots of stories- including her heading to Sierra Leone and covering the Ebola epidemic. Quite the woman indeed. Lots more details about her neatly filed away in the brain of the Northern Irish lass, and indeed on her laptop. She saved a few choice quotes and links to files, before dragging it into a fresh folder and burying it deep within a labyrinth of other files, before finally encrypting it. Random password generator... I`0Kxy+oA= . Eh, not the worst it had ever thrown at her. Then onto a little more digging.

Most proved fruitless, sadly. Most... Except for the girl. An Australian serial killer targeting suspected paedophiles. Not only positively delightful, but also most likely one of her new colleagues. That... Disturbed her. Especially the messes left of some of those victims... Brr. More details were not forthcoming, which did irritate her, but she supposed that was the nature of "IS THIS THE NEW JACK THE RIPPER?" as one clickbait headline splashed across her laptop screen.

Now she had the advantage. People often said that knowledge was power, but they never seemed to understand how much that was the case. Plugging in her laptop- glad she had bought an adaptor at Heathrow, she slid in her heels and took out a more practical set of clothing. Loose jeans, a pair of running shoes, with heel support, a top, and then a denim jacket over that. Then onto the makeup. A little bit to hide her more harsher features, and then a little blusher, making sure to leave it a little unblended. Not so much she looked like a clown, but enough to give her more than a rosy glow. Then she slipped on her glasses. Lunch, then it was. Still no summons.

Instead of eating inside the hotel, she decided to take a walk. Annoyingly, being a residential district, there were no sit-down places for her to eat, so she dejectedly returned back to her hotel, another cup of coffee and a club sandwich secured. At least, she supposed, she had learned a little more of the neighbourhood, and that was something that could come in handy. Her meal was not that bad however. Ignoring the fact that the crisps, (not chips as the waitress kept insisting,) were sharp enough to turn the inside of her mouth to neat little ribbons, it was at least prepared well.

Then, finally, came the call. They returned to the parlour, another glass of milk in a crystal decanter (really not needed- cream was not a sufficient sedimentary product to require something like a decanter, but she wouldn't complain, really,) and then... Hellpact LLC. Of course. She restrained herself from smacking her own forehead, before doing so once she heard the details of the mission, audibly groaning. "Of course. How typical that we end up investigating one of the most stereotypical cases- to the point where everyone from Sherlock Holmes to Professor Layton has covered it." She finished the glass of milk, and was tempted to ask for a White Russian, but refrained. Alcohol afterwards. "Cream and coffee please, no sugar. Lots of cream." was her request when the butler returned. She supposed she had signed up to this.

---

Carnation took her own folder as she opened it up, examining the contents in one hand as she twirled her butterfly knife in the other. Three kids being taken, seemingly without any outside or physical influences onto the environment. Checking the other documents she had been given in the folder, Carnation spoke up. "Wonderin' how this isn't front page material, especially with how recent it is. My story was still front page after a week, if memory serves me." She folded up her knife as she took the photo of the family out of the folder. They looked just so... happy. So carefree. It made Carnation a bit sad, to be honest. The parents didn't deserve what happened, unless...

Carnation lifted up her head from the documents as she looked towards the group she was around. She had been sitting on a sofa next to Erin in the meantime, but she made sure her shoes were off while she sat there. Beside her on an end table was a glass of Sprite, half-drank, but still fairly cold, and surrounding Carnation was her trench coat. It was being used as a blanket, and her hoodie was still on as she sat there. "Do we know if either of the parents have any sorta occult history? Magical ability, demon pacts, anythin'?" Carnation commented as she lifted her glass to take a sip of her drink, placing it beside her once again when she was done with it. "Everything was locked, there wasn't any forced entry. That leaves the trio of kids and the parents as the only people in the house..."

Reaching to her backpack, Carnation pulled out her stuffed pig, Mister Barny, and simply coddled the toy. It looks as if it had been in a lot better of shape way in the past, but it still had some form of charm to it. Hell, it's eyes were actual buttons. That's cute as shit.

Ross looked up as Eve unveiled the name she'd picked for the "enterprise", Hellpact was the name she picked, she said she wanted to have some fun with the name. Ross sighed, at least the boss wasn't some all work no play kind of person. He tilted his head as Eve opened portals in front of everyone, what is this Harry Potter? She couldn't have just handed out the papers? Ross shrugged to himself and took his folder out of his respective portal, and flipped it open, looking over the contents.

A whole family missing, two adults and three children, some fucked up shit right there. Ross was giving everything a second read over when he heard Elizabeth speak up, and he wasn't happy with what he heard. Was this some kind of a game to her? What did it matter if this kind of impossible mystery had been on TV or in movies, this was real life, and these were real people who'd gone missing. "Hey, I don't know what this job means to you, but treating it with a little bit of respect would be nice. This is real life honey, these are real people who've gone missing, we're not in some murder mystery show on the television. So how about we take this a little seriously?"

Ross would take a sip of his apple juice while shooting Elizabeth a glare, then the kid would speak up, it looked like the kid had more of a brain than her, getting straight to business. Ross could respect that, didn't mean he trusted her though. She had valid questions, but he wasn't sure if anyone actually had answers, or else this might not have been a mystery in the first place, only thing Ross knew was that magic was involved. But then again, that was kinda the entire point of this 'Hellpact' they made with Lady Eve. They were here to clean up all the messes created by magic. Ross then remembered that demons could be involved too, god how did he know this mystery was going to lead to some nasty ass shit?

Devyn briefly startled as a tear in space-time opened in front of her, temporarily worrying that a human brain would plop out onto her lap. Thankfully, that wasn't the case. Instead, it was a dossier for their first case of...Hellpact LLC. Great. Devyn was certain that name would give them a good foot in the door. Not only was it an uninviting name- it was also innaccurate because Devyn didn't even have nor want a pack, and she was almost positive that neither did Ross, who seemed to be one of the only other sane people there. Coincidence?. Probably not.

One of the reasons she began to doubt Elizabeth's normalcy was her apparent flippant disregard for human life, almost immediately dismissing the case of three mission children as stereotypical, or boring. Perhaps she wanted to seem jaded for appearance reasons. Ross called her out on it, and she had no intention of halting the conversation to further rag on the irish woman for her cynicism.

She folded one leg over the other and placed the dossier in her lap, flipping through the pages, looking at print-outs of social media posts. Wishing a very happy birthday to little Stevie about a year and a half ago, Kalel's dance recital, etc, etc. There was nothing on the dossier about warlocks or wizardy at all, which is why she found Carnation's question redundant. Then again, she was just a little girl and her attention span was probably too short to struggle through the information. Why they were working with a foul-mouthed child was beyond her grasp, but Devyn just hoped she would stay out of the way and not distract the investigation by misplacing her teddy bear or something to that effect.

To the experienced journalist their next move was clear- investigate the scene of the disappearence. She voiced this thought aloud.

"I don't think we'll learn anything from this manor. From the outside, everything is normal. We have to go to the place and see if we can find anything the police missed. Luckily, the children aren't confirmed dead, so the parents should be eager to answer questions to as many investigators as possible." It sounded a bit cynical, but it was generally true. Grieving parents are sick of the world, but worried parents are usually quite compliant to figures of authority.

She glanced over at the child first, then the rest of the group as she spoke. "If the parents were involved in a pact that involved sacrificing their children to some dark power, it's obvious no one knows about it, or else they would have been arrested already. We have to search for parents and talk to the parents. The trail is getting colder by the minute- I'll meet you all there. If you've no transport you can carpool with me." Devyn slung the purse over her shoulder once more, standing from the couch.

"Thank you, Ms. Eve. We won't disappoint." She added over her own shoulder as the butler opened the door for her. Devyn gave the nameless man his thanks, then continued down the driveway with haste. Missing persons cases were very time reliant. The longer you waited, the more likely you were to find a corpse instead of a person.

A moment later, she was sitting in her rumbling car, pausing for a moment in case someone needed a ride. The passenger seat was crowded with her purse, a latop, and several loose papers, but the back two seats were mostly clear of obstruction.

---

Erin sat impassively, flicking through the folder with more and more force before finally ripping the back cover nearly in half as she let the folder fall in front of her.

Turning towards Elizabeth, she let her eyes betray her anger. "Next time I won't let such despicable comments lay. I thought you better than such trash."

"Obvious occult interactions of some kind are abound, and we're wasting time here."

She stood, motioning for Carnation to follow her, as she exited behind Devyn.

This needed to be solved sooner than later.

---

---

Mallaidh’s stomach grumbled. Having only managed to finish a small bowl of porridge along with half a glass of water, she was hungry, despite the plentiful offerings that would have been tempting at any other time. Even then, it had been a great effort to get it down and keep it there.

When the others returned, Molly stood apart, leaning against a wall, one hand massaging her stomach with a slow, pulsing motion. She didn’t want to throw up; it made her worry about whether she needed to take her medication again. Lots of things made her worry.

From the outside, she might seem rather dour, brow knitted and lips pouting.

She recoiled at the sudden appearance of the strange, shimmering doorways through reality. She watched Lady Eve, and all the others, each retrieving similar, if-not-identical, files. Only after everyone else had stuck their hand into the aether did Mallaidh follow suit. Despite being last, her heart still leapt forward against her chest when she watched her hand disappear.

It didn’t get much better after she had retrieved the dossier. Lady Eve gave a brief summation, and as Molly comprehended it, a wave of guilt washed over and blurred the words. She tried to read them. And again. It was no use; she couldn’t focus. Missing children? Just like home… What she had done would always catch up with her, it seemed. Anxiety’s iron fist wrapped itself around her throat and the air was getting thin. Bullets of sweat trickled down her forehead. Her eyes darted to everyone, only once, and then glued themselves to the dossier and the jumbled words she could not read, no matter how hard she tried. Breathe. Why did she always forget to breathe?

Only half mindful of what had been said by the others, she watched some leave. She was glad of that; they seemed resolute in the supernatural nature of this, and so far, Mallaidh hadn’t heard anything to convince her that was the case. She’d feel less stupid voicing her doubts now the most vehement were absent.

“Uhm, Lady Eve,” her voice was a wavering trill. She cleared her throat, and tried to sound calmer, “Are we to treat this as explicitly, uhm, special? It doesn’t seem beyond the scope of… natural evil. The parents could simply be good liars.”

She took a deep breath to steady her voice, which had begun dropping towards a lower octave, “So, is there something that concretely sets it apart that I’ve missed?”