...

"What the fuck was that?"

"Shut up! Let me think." The large gangster paced as he desperately rubbed his face. "What about that section 6 bitch who came by? Tell her to call the pigs."

"Went to get coffee." The short oni-like gangster replied, his breathing ragged and deep as he tried his best to calm himself.

"Shit!" The large gangster kicked a chair across the dark room. "What if we..."

The large gangster and the short oni continued to think and rebuke each other's plans.

The tall oni-like gangster kept whispering to himself as he hid in the corner of the room. Prayers that he won't die. With each second passing, his prayers being more desperate. His hands clutched his head as he tightly gripped and pulled at his face.

Crick. Crack.

His face contorted and tore as skull and flesh had expanded and shorn to form the shape of a lantana.

"Fuck!" The large gangster said as blood splattered onto him.

"B-brother!" The short oni said as he ran to his brother's lifeless side.

The door creaked and the light from the hallway cleaved the room.

"Fuck this!" The large gangster said and he drew his sword.

With knuckles white and nails cutting into his palms, the large gangster thrust his sword into the opening of the door. The sound of falling sand came from beyond. The blade he carried crumbled into rust from tip to hilt. The gangster simply thrust his blade harder and deeper towards what was on the other side of the door.

He only stopped when flesh, blood, and bone was naught but dust.

...

---

It was never a good sign when Armand was on the scene. To the detectives of Section 7, that usually meant the case would never be easy. Then again, when were they ever? Section 7's raison d'être was to handle the cases the other departments refused to investigate. It was even worse that he was working at 10 AM. That was, for all intents and purposes, a new one for him.

The Saniwa were new blood to the city. Expats of a Japanese crime family that had quickly found themselves taking over various soaplands, hostess clubs, and other such ventures in the north's red-light district. Their treatment of the red-light district was the same as how they took it over: violent. Despite their affiliation with Gehenna, they weren't interested in the old ways or honour. No, they cared more about profit beyond anything else. They were only affiliated with Gehenna due to the familial relationship their leader had with someone associated with Gehenna leadership.

Their estate was opulent. In spite of their detachment to the old ways, it was a large manor styled on traditional Japanese architecture. The traditional garden outside had quickly fallen to disrepair. Trash littered the stone pathway. Grass was overgrown and uncared for. The cherry blossom trees were marked with slashes from swords and the occasional bullet hole. Were it not for the police tape outside, one could easily imagine the manor as merely abandoned.

The outside of manor was more cared for--if you could call it that. There were no holes in the shoji nor blemishes on the framing. Though, most of that was likely from the protective talismans that covered the wood framing.

The inside of the house was dire. No talisman used in construction could stop what went on inside. The remnants of battle filled the inside. Bullet casings, scorch marks, and blades slashing the inner doorways littered the house. While the occasional loose weapon could be found, there seemed to be a lack of weapons beyond the ornaments on the walls. Definitely not 30 gangsters worth. The western half of the manor appeared to be significantly more damaged.

The corpses were in a dire shape. Despite an estimated thirty members inside--a number given by Desdemona, a Section 6 investigator conducting an audit on scene--only eight corpses could be identified. The rest had been reduced to a mixture of blood splatters and overlapping stains on the paper walls and tatami mats. That made things difficult to count exactly how many victims there were.

In addition, there were supposed to be five Section 1 officers accompanying Dezzie. They are nowhere to be found, but it could be assumed that they have been turned into stains on the tatami mat. Any attempt at radioing them has resulted in nothing.

As far as the detectives could tell, there wasn't much in common between the identifiable victims beyond their affiliation and how they died. If there was a message the perpetrator was trying to display, it was an obtuse one.

Each of the eight identifiable victims had died in a similar way--at least, one would assume. Their head seemed to split, shatter, and bloom into the form of a flowering lantana. If death wasn't instantaneous, it would have certainly been painful. Each victim seemed to be some mixture of fleeing or hiding. Only one seemed to hold any weaponry, but a few had small arms and blades hidden on them. The one with a weapon held an unused pistol in his hand in the middle of a room. A human-shaped stain remained in the doorway while another "bloomed" victim sat in the corner. There was a chair against the wall that had obviously been kicked or thrown across the room.

As for identification of the victims, there wasn't much commonality between them beyond their obvious affiliation to the Saniwa. A handful of higher-ups. A handful of goons. Some demons. Some humans. Mostly men. A few women--though, Desdemona did say that they were mostly men before it all happened.

The air was stifling. The smell of rust and dust wasn't overwhelming, but it was certainly noticeable.

"So," a kneeling Armand said as he picked up and inspected one of the few loose weapons on the ground: an unfired 5-shot snub-nose, "would anyone care to speculate?"

Of course, Armand already had his own thoughts on what happened. If his leadership wasn't democratic, it was at least socratic.

---

Marty maintained a gruff expression as he and his team combed through the house. Well, it was Armand’s team if you wanted to get technical, but, look- the guy was likely to keel over from a heart attack or suffer a manic break at any moment. Look at him. Point being, someone else was gonna be chief eventually, right? And that someone was Marty. You know, maybe. Probably. Just needed to earn this poor fucker’s respect before he turned into worm chow or retired. That should be easy though. He’d stuck to this job like a fly to shit for the past three years and if he knew anything, it was that excellence beat experience every time.

This whole Section was full of unrepentant criminals and lazy jackasses anyways. Marty actually wanted to be here. He was the son of the Beelzebub. No freaking yahweh was he gonna pass up the opportunity in front of him.

So to say Marty was on his A-game would be a disgusting understatement and you should feel bad for suggesting it. This was a AAA+ kind of game at the very least. A cursory glance suggested the markings outside the house were a product of sport or play. Not relevant to the yuck house of horrors inside.

And fuckity-fuck it was nasty.

See, that’s where the gruff expression came in. Maintain a look of carefully calculated and manly indifference with just a dash of soulful longing and nobody would know how completely skeeved out he was feeling in this place. In reality, he just looked vaguely constipated or perhaps as though he was suffering from a migraine. Moving through the house with his maybe needing-to-shit or maybe needing-an-ibuprofen expression, it was interesting to note that while most of the victims were piles of organic waste scattered throughout the absolute warzone the interior of the estate had apparently become, several corpses were “intact.”

Intact insofar as their bodies were largely in one piece, minus the heads, which had kindly made way for tasteful assortments of a semi-popular garden flower called the lantana. That was… sort of nice. If you ignored the everything else, anyways.

As the group came to a stop, Marty reached into his pockets, pulling out a comb as another hand flicked open the lid on a small mirror. He combed his antennae carefully as he took mental stock of the nasty, nasty nonsense this case was becoming.

Lotta dead scumbags turned into goop.

Some dead scumbags merely turned into plant pots.

All the plant-pot-people were found either hiding or fleeing. Most weren’t even armed, and the ones that were either never fired their weapons or never drew them to begin with.

And there was something else, something curious that Marty had picked up on from the drop. No animals, anywhere inside the estate. No hungry rats, no curious cats, no trails of ants or even a single stray mite. Nothing. He was the only fly in the ointment, as it were. Which didn’t make much sense. This place was a shithole, and he couldn’t imagine cleanliness was very important to these losers before they bit it either.

He wasn’t very sure what to do with that last piece of information, but it definitely held relevance.

“Well,” Marty began, his voice warbling from out his proboscis-like mouth with a buzzing undertone. He continued to comb himself in the mirror. “It looks to me like if you were brave, you got turned into head cheese, and if you weren’t, you got turned into a head flower instead.” He snapped the mirror shut as he moved to the center of the room, his head completely still as his compound eyes looked at everyone around him simultaneously. “All of our fragrant friends were either trying to hide or trying to run. None of their weapons were drawn, or if they were, they didn’t have the guts to use them before they each got the uh, big idea.”

He was starting to feel conscious of people’s attention on him as he let out a throaty buzzing noise that passed for a cough. “Fear is the mind killer, or something like that. Maybe literally. What we don’t know is whether the flowering was a side effect of something the victims were feeling in the perp’s presence, or if it was something that was done to them intentionally, and something about their fragile states of mind made them vulnerable to it.”

Holy shit- was he on a roll right now? It kinda felt like that. Suck it Barbatos.

Marty continued, trying to quash the nervous tremor that was creeping into his hair bristles. “What’s also incredibly weird is that we’re the only living things in this whole place- and let me finish.” Kittyan wouldn’t be able to tell, but he was paying him special attention as he said that. “There aren’t any animals here. No scavengers, big or small. I don’t know about the rest of you, but I could tell pretty much right away that this place wasn’t winning any awards in the cleanliness department. So, uh, I don’t really know what that means,” His shoulders shrugged emphatically. “But you’d expect some bugs at the least to be getting in on the all you can eat sausage buffet out there.”

He flashed four finger guns at Armand. “Am I on fire or what? Anyone else got something?” He peered at Barbatos as his voice took on a reedy, suspicious tone. "Any contradictory theories to share? Hm?" Fucking guy. Thought he was so cool. Well. It was the Marty show now! Eat it.

---

The phrase ‘This is new’ was rote in Section 7. Whether it was gang wars, corporate espionage, or ritual zealotry, every single case had something(s) that got it ejected from the desk of whatever department should have been handling it, and put on the Easy Runner’s tab. New became norm, zebras became horses, and some days Yam was convinced all it would take to dupe their entire department was a cut and dry murder. Give them a jilted lover, and they’d likely spend a year trying to connect the victim to the Children of Helle, because Section 7 couldn’t see the forest through the trees unless it was on fire.

All that to say, this was new.

Not the scene itself, which was new in the old way. The shock and awe of a mass murder, smacking of weird and reeking of dead wannabe syndicate bigshots. But Armand was here, which was new in the new way; which meant it wasn’t actually new, because he’d shown up on a small number of cases before, but rather, it was now new in a way that made its old-new weirdness new-new weirdness. True-new. New plus. Suddenly every burning tree in the forest mattered.

Damn.

Yam crouched down in front of one of the flower-headed bodies. Lantanas. Interesting choice, which she did think it was—a choice. It wasn’t a bouquet, each of the eight overgrown victims sprouted the same flower, which meant they were chosen deliberately, or out of uniformity. Methodical inexplicability was the worst kind; there’d be rules, and Yam didn’t like playing games she didn’t know the rules to.

Thankfully, bugboy was on it. As grating as he could be—which was perhaps his most potent quality after his unshakable persistence—she hadn’t yet actually regretted having him on a job. His perspective, like his eyes, was manifold, and when you were dealing with weird, you wanted to see things from as many different views as you could.

Speaking of.

Yam shut her eyes, ignored the wriggling feeling beneath her eyelids, and then opened them again. She was, as always, keenly aware that they were no longer her eyes, but she saw through them all the same. Albeit, there was a subconscious tug, almost like an itch, trying to force her attention to certain places.

Thoughts?

Plenty, constantly. Bel’s voice was paved gravel, paradoxically smooth and also entirely too abrasive as it scraped across her mind. If that was a question, though, you’ll have to be more specific, and much more polite.

Yam blinked her own eyes back and shut him out. She wasn’t in the mood, not until she'd had a few cigarettes. Besides, there was enough here for her to go off of on her own, at least for now. She got back to her feet, surveying the rest of the carnage. Blood, bullets, slashes, stains. Whatever came through here wasn’t just big, it was too big.

“Think we’re looking for a human,” she said, moseying back to the others. “I’ve never seen a demon who could do this, and anyone who could would be wearing thirty pounds of curses. You don’t get that kind of work dispelled without people hearing about it.”

---

A pinch of the bridge of the nose, a rub of sore, tired eyes as she leaned back against a clean spot on the wall. Both things that were almost universal gestures for Dezzie. Frustration and confusion.

The triple-shot cappuccino lay untouched by the entrance where she'd placed it carefully down after she realized that the brand-new red stains were the remnants of people, so add exhaustion to the roster too. The damn thing was cold by now anyway. She'd never worked with Section 7 before, and seeing some of the characters that they had on staff now and then, she wasn't sure she wanted to be if this was the kind of thing they dealt with on a regular basis.

And, of course, there was some horror there too, and no small amount. If the audit hadn't been at 9 o'clock in the morning--if she hadn't gone to get coffee after a long night spent poring over what the database said on the Saniwas and grousing about having to go to an audit--then she'd probably be a splatter of paint right now too. And in her particular line of work, she wasn't exactly used to seeing this level of carnage. She was just...really good at ignoring it.

Man. Lantanas were her favorite flower, too.

She'd given a brief statement to the one who was in charge of the whole operation; Armand something-or-other. But it wasn't much to go on. Now the vaunted and mysterious Section 7 were having a little powwow. She opened her eyes again, ceased rubbing her nose, and walked in to join the circle. Was she specifically invited? No, no she was not, and the question the boss-man was asking was almost certainly not directed at her. But she was the closest they had to a witness, so she had just as much right to talk as any of 'em.

A fly guy--rather, a guy that was in fact a fly--was speaking (buzzing?) now. What he was saying was interesting and relevant, certainly. The lack of any other forms of life, any scavengers, was certainly an important puzzle piece, even if she didn't understand it right now. Still. She turned her white-pupiled eyes on him, fixing him with a flat stare.

"Head cheese," she said tonelessly. "'Got the big idea.' All you can eat sausage buffet." Her lip curled up with a hint of mild contempt. "Show some respect to the dead."

With that, she looked over to the gray-skinned...human? She felt like a human, but also not like a human, and not just because she had concrete-colored skin...who was now approaching as she said her piece. She hmmed, glancing up to the ceiling as she thought.

"Okay, sure, I'd buy that a demon who could do this would be slapped with every kind of curse, and we've had a few cases in cybersec about unlicensed use of contracts." She crossed her arms, cocked her head to the side.

"But even disregarding the license, when one is established with a powerful demon they need to curse them to restrict their magic anyway, and I don't think I've ever heard of an artifact that can do something like this. They're far too specific, and they don't have anywhere near this kind of power regardless."

Then, finally, she turned to the group at large, flashing her ID card and, with a quick application of magic, making sure her uniform fell on her perfectly. "Dezzie Smirnova, Section 6, cybersec." She yawned heavily. "Whatever caused this worked fast. I stepped out for coffee. Ten minutes, fifteen tops. When I got back it was already done. I think it's probably a human too since a curse is easier to get around with two points of connection. But I'm not usually one for field work, and a curse has to be circumvented either way, so don't count on it 100%."

---

There was a soft, steady thumping noise as the tip of one of the detectives' scaly tail rose and fell back onto the tatami mat. After the initial walk through, Barbatos was squat beside one of the flowering victims, his head tilted slightly in thought as he stared at their new petals. He was kind of getting a sense of deja vu, which was weird because he definitely had never seen this before. The dead people, yeah, that came with the job unfortunately, but the flowers were new. If anything it kind of made the horror show... slightly better?

Barbatos stroked the sides of his chin with one hand, scratching the bristles on his face. You know, all thoughtful-like, like a real detective. He'd been with Section 7 for a few years now, so even without any training he had still managed to pick up a few things. Mostly from cop dramas since his coworkers were all very motley for detectives, but, still.

He glanced around the room. The other corpses, the blood stains, the state of the room's destruction. Yet his attention kept sliding back to the flowering stiff in front of him. Weird. Was a hunch trying to form? Hm...

Feeling Marty's bulbous eyes on him, Barbatos blinked and looked up at the younger demon. What a nice guy, always making sure Barbatos' opinions were heard! Barbatos gave him a wide, easy smile.

"About the fear killing minds thing?" See, he had been listening. "Nah, that's good. Good line too. Most of the other stuff you said was just, you know, facts and questions, but I'm picking up what you're putting down with the fear thing."

It definitely looked as Marty had put it anyway. He couldn't imagine that the budding and blooming happened beforehand, with the way everything else in the room was laid out. When Yam spoke up Barbatos pointed at her while keeping his gaze on Marty at first, as if to say to the Beelzebub spawn see, that's a theory. Then he dropped his hand and looked at her properly, nodding along. Yeah, that made sense. And if anyone would know about curses it was probably her.

"I wonder if the flowers mean anything," he said, unknowingly giving voice to one of the woman's own thoughts. "They're all the same kind."

It was also possible that the flower type was pure coincidence, and just a side effect of whatever did all this, not something the perpetrator specifically chose to do. Well, someone else would have to figure that out.

Barbatos stood up, pressing his hands against his back as he did. He dwarfed most of the other occupants of the room, but not all of them. The taller perspective didn't really help at all though. Carefully he shuffled backward, making sure he wasn't blocking the gazes of more seasoned detectives. Everyone had their strengths and weaknesses, so he didn't mind letting the clue gatherers... gather clues.

Instead he just internalized what everyone was saying, making sure he'd be able to keep track of everything in his head. And, when the only non-Section 7 individual in the room spoke up and finally introduced herself, Barbatos gave the woman a welcoming smile. The situation was pretty grim and it seemed like maybe they were getting off on the wrong foot with her already, so he tried being friendly. It they were going to work together he'd rather everyone got along.

"Wish we all met under better circumstances Dezzie," he said, scooping one of her hands up in his own and giving it a hearty shake. "Barbatos. That's Marty, Yam, Kelly, Al, Lorelei, and the Chief."

He pointed them all out as he introduced them, if they were gonna be rude and not do it themselves. He released her afterward, putting his hands on his hips as he turned to, sort of, rejoin the discussion. He didn't have much to add except that really annoying sense of familiarity.

"I'm inclined to agree with Kelly, by the way. If a bunch of strange things happened, it's usually a bunch of other things that caused them. Probably more than one method, more than one person that did it, etcetera."

And the fact it was all the same plant, the same apparent circumstances that caused said plants, then it actually could be an artifact reacting in the same specific way: turn the fearful into flowers.

So what else was missing...

Once again his gaze was drawn to one particular corpse. Then, his tail thumped heavily against the ground and he snapped his fingers.

"I remember now. I know this guy! Sort of. Pre-bouquet." He leaned over toward one of the victims, blinking down at their splintered face. There were barely any features left to see on the demon, but curled around one of the short horns was a gaudy gold bauble. Fragmented pieces of a neck tattoo could still be made out. Barbatos crossed his arms. "He was an asshole, y'know, the aggressive kind." He frowned at the recollection. "Always hassling the girls on the street."

Was that even important? Who could say. But at least he felt better now that the nagging feeling at his mind was sorted out.

It was a day like any other day.

Which meant that after a year or so, Lorelei’s head no longer spun from the sheer oddity of the cases that Section 7 managed. The reports made it seem like an almost ‘proper’ mystery, compared to previous conundrums: the mysterious disappearance of the thirty-odd Saniwa Crime Family, as well as the Section 1 Officers. It occurred within the amount of time that the Section 6 auditor took to step outside for a coffee, and it occurred without any sound or sign of resistance and battle. Just human and demon heads, turned into bloody, dripping ‘flowers’.

That, and an inordinate amount of blood staining basically everything else.

Well, couldn’t have happened to any people more deserving. ‘cept for the officers.

Stepping into the estate a bit later than the others, owing to the trays of coffee she was juggling, Lorelei kept quiet as she let the others air out their thoughts, handing them the paper cups as she strolled around the area. Hot chocolate and coffee in an 80:20 ratio for Marty to gradually get him used to the taste. Chocolate milk in the original carton for Kittyan. An iced latte with strawberry whipped cream and sprinkles for Barbatos. Coffee with some white powder sprinkled in for Yam (probably just sugar, but only the one drinking would know). The usual for Chief and Al. There was another box of a dozen donuts in her car’s backseat, but it didn’t seem like the right time to bust out celebratory desserts just yet, especially when…

“Oh my gosh,” Lorelei’s brows lifted up. “Is that you, Dezzie? It’s me, Lorelei. We worked together on the Murcielago corruption scandal two years ago!” The bubbly excitement of seeing an former co-worker fizzled out to tones of a softer concern. Imagine, the rare instance where one leaves a Section 6 office, only to experience something so bizarre as this. Especially when you end up being the only survivor.

“Are you feeling alright?” She flipped through the file cabinets in her mind, but the query for ‘donuts Dezzie preferred’ laid empty, so Lorelei left it vague. “I’ve got some donuts in my car, if you want something to munch on.”

The woman looked almost ready to move, but then returned to the task at hand, pulling out a manila folder from the inside of her coat and handing over to Armand.

“And Chief, here’s the information you requested. Saniwa activities over in the Floating District have generally been marked with poor treatment of the ladies and gentlemen working there, as Officer Barbatos has reported. There were recent rumors of a vengeful ghost spiriting away abusers that came up in that area too, but these stories become popular whenever there are those like the Saniwa out there.” She flicked her thumb against the colored post-it notes she used to separate the sets of documents from each other. “There was a similar case seven years ago, where the Twisty Tuples were ‘spirited’ away as well, if you wanted to compare the incidents there. In my perspective though…”

Lorelei turned her gaze towards their resident gang-specialist.

“Officer Blackhand.” Gosh, she did love saying that nickname. Marty ought to take notes. “Have you heard anything recent about the Kurodoji Family? They were overthrown by the Saniwa, I want to say…four years ago and wiped out as far as the BPS was concerned. But there were a survivor…”

---

---

Throughout their investigative trek through the estate, Alphard trailed towards the back, Kelly the last person behind him. Which—

Alright, look. Kelly was amazing, amazingly lethal too. Very dependable in a fight. Having him there made Al feel safer, even when there was no one who’d attack them around. Also, also, he could be nice. Honestly. It was just– Just the notion that maybe, just maybe, what Alphard was doing was making him wait.

It was just the slightest bit nerve-wracking.

Kelly never said anything about it, though, and neither did anyone else. They were all too preoccupied gathering clues. Of course that took time. So, it was fine if he had to stop every once in a while, switch out to another pair of disposable surgical gloves, touch a wall here, a bloodstain there, close his eyes, and witness what memories lingered.

There wasn’t much of note, not until the first flower-headed corpse.

After that…

Well.

Suffice to say, he had no room to feel self-conscious when that was what they were dealing with. Horror set in, and he had to swallow down the bitter bile trying to crawl its way up his throat. He had seen grisly scenes before, but even after a year in Section 7, he felt that nothing had come even close to this. The heads looked like they were exploded from the inside out. Not only that, the flesh, blood, bone, and brain had been sculpted into the shape of lantanas with a flair of macabre artisanship.

Body transfiguration?

The victims themselves offered few clues. Yet, by the time they made it to the final room, Al’s complexion had whitened to the sullen blue of a foggy morning, a tinge of sickly green creeping in. Two more bodies to go.

Someone or something watching…Maybe. Besides the victims’ emotions at the time of their death, this was his only clue so far. Coincidence or not, it was enough to trigger a vision more concrete when he exerted his psychic power upon the last corpse.

Terror. Panic. Paranoia. He was being hunted. There was no hope of resistance, no hope of escape, no hope of being spared or rescued. There was nothing he could do. Fear gripped his heart. It was as if a mass of twisted vines wound their way around him, stifling, squeezing, strangling. Wicked thorns dug in, bathed in the crimson of his leaking life-blood. A most insidious venom seeped in, infecting him whole. The burning knowledge that it was his turn next paralyzed his entire body. Tears trailed down his cheeks, whispers of a fervent prayer ghosted his lips. One final peek, hoping against hope he had been left alone–

That was when he saw It.

Alphard came to with a gasp, reeling from the pain as much as he was from the vision. It felt like his head had been split open, but more importantly…Wide-eyed, he disposed of his gloves, and hastily withdrew a small, worn dark blue notebook from an inner shirt pocket. As the chief started up the discussion of the crime, Al scribbled and sketched with frenetic energy. He stopped long enough only to nod, glance, or react to his co-workers who were all pitching in with clever ideas and nuggets of wisdom.

The sense of tension between Miss Smirnova and Marty had him instinctively pull up his shoulders to his ears as his gaze flickered from one to the other. They sounded like they might get into a conflict at any moment now. He really hoped they wouldn’t?

Thankfully, the conversation moved on without incident. For an undetermined time, he was lulled into a false sense of security. So, it was inevitable that at a sudden loud clatter, he let out a, “Meep!”, almost falling over himself in surprise. Rather than inexplicably being under attack, though…

Oh. It was just Kelly.

By the time Barbatos took it upon himself to introduce them all to the Section 6 officer, Al was done messing around with his notebook. When his name was called, he waved shyly at her.

The next in a line of surprises was, at the very least, a very pleasant one. Officer Lorelei brought drinks for everyone. A smile soft as a fuzzy cloud graced his features as he accepted his favourite treat for frazzled nerves, a honey chamomile tea latte. “Thank you,” he told her earnestly. He even managed a brief moment of direct eye contact before he looked away, stuttering a concerned, “Di-didn’t you get any for yourself?”

Having been patiently listening, bobbing his head up and down in agreement or approval, it took a lull in the conversation and several pairs of eyes swiveling his way before Al realized he had yet to contribute. “Oh, UM!” His tail swished from left to right, and he giggled nervously. “Right, thoughts to share…”

His gaze travelled to their resident fly demon. “I’m not brave like Marty, so I don’t know about that, but…” He scrunched his eyes, images flashing beneath his eyelids. “They had no way of fighting back, even when they tried.” Another thing his friend/mentor mentioned had sparked further insight. “We have missing bodies, missing weapons…I guess the arms and the armed could have all been turned into, er, goo?” His fingers made an awkward scrunching motion.

“In 10 to 15 minutes,” he nodded at Miss Smirnova, “the perpetrator did all of this, while hardly leaving any evidence. Fast. Brutal. Unstoppable. Stealthy, too – another ability, or because whatever it was naturally wouldn’t have left much of anything behind? I think it’s interesting the critters avoid this place, too. The smells are here,” he tilted his head towards Kelly, “so rather than this place not being attractive to them, is it repulsive for some other reason? A sixth sense kind of a deal? I didn’t get much of a read on the estate itself though – almost no memories, no sensations. Could be the wards, could have been scoured clean. What’s interesting is that the outside has mundane memories. It does happen sometimes that murderers don’t leave any psychic imprints themselves, but it can be another hint about who or what we’re dealing with…” Forced to take a deep breath, Al realized he was rambling.

There was at least one noteworthy piece he ought to share, he knew, even if what he’d said so far wasn’t all that useful. “Th-there is one thing I saw about what happened…about the killer. W-well, probably about the killer.”

He opened his notebook on its last page, facing it towards his colleagues. There, in horizontal facing, was a vivid, lurid sketch of an eye.

A glass eyeball – indications of it being see through marked in pencil – the only hint of colour penciled bold and strong smack in the middle. A pitch-black iris overtaken by the pupil, bleeding out into the sclera. Like a splotch of ink spreading out, devouring. Dread manifested.

Staring…

right

Armand listened as the detectives gave their thoughts.

Marty's conclusions summarized most of it. For someone who got a job because of endless persistence and (unbeknownst to the fly guy himself) a bet, he did a pretty good job in connecting the dots. Of course, Armand wasn't going to smile and give Beelz his roses. At least, not in this environment. Especially when you considered his ego. For the sake of everyone at the Easy Runner, an egoless Beelzebub would not experience Miksi jumping over the bar's countertop to pummel him for his audicity. Frogs and flies--truly, they were the worst of enemies.

"It could be assumed that it's connected. Violence, fear, insects. It looks like the perp was rather moody." He said as he stroked his stubble.

Yam's thoughts were a good starting place for a perp. Though, it was always risky to case out a perp before a motive was established. Assumptions could easily poison the well just as easily as they could connect distant threads.

"It's a safe thought. But don't get too hung up on it. Strange things have happened in the city."

When Dezzie brought up the issue of respect, Armand didn't speak up. He wouldn't defend his detectives nor admonish them. They were grownups who could solve their own issues, after all. Though, it was probably more likely that he didn't care if his detectives got into fist fights with either each other or other sections.

He did, however, pipe up when the topic of curses and restrictions.

"A contract can--at most--fulfill what a demon is currently capable of. As far as those go in New Helle, if a human is capable of doing it with a contract, then a demon would be able to do it."

As much as he wanted to say something about sniffing around a room with people turned to viscera and goo, Armand did little more but watch as Kittyan sniffed out a clue. Of course, his comments on the scene were pretty astute.

"Multiple perps always makes it a pain. Though, not really. They usually fall like dominoes, but finding the first perp is something that I don't want to deal with."

His face shifted as Kittyan showed him the baggie. While the chief was usually some mixture of annoyed and exhausted, the more astute detectives--especially Beelz--could feel a shift in the air. Something was definitely afoot.

"I'll take this to the lab myself." He said without elaborating further. Usually, he would say something more about it.

Immediately, he inspected the snub nose with greater fervor. He pushed open the cylinder to empty a round onto his hand. His thumb roughly rubbed against the copper of the bullet. The copper rubbed away as if it were merely paint. A bone white exterior.

"It seems that the Saniwa had some great support." He mused. Again, he didn't elaborate further as he emptied the cylinder and placed the bullets in his jacket pocket. A great deal of care was put into not following evidence procedures. But it didn't quite matter when New Helle's justice system was so malleable beneath the surface.

Still, the chief didn't run off in a panic. There was nothing good that would do, after all. He was still listening to the rest of the detectives.

Armand replied to Barbatos as he brought up the familiar face.

"That's a good place to start, if you like conducting interviews. Harass women, red light district gang."

Lorelei's appearance seemed to brighten Armand's mood--even if it was just by a slight amount. Taking his regular, he quickly began sipping it. His usual was, of course, a peppermint white chocolate mocha. It seemed uncharacteristic of him, but hey, it's what he always had. When asked about it, he would always reply it had enough calories and tasted good.

After taking the manila folder, he thumbed through a few files to at least glance at them.

"Good work," he said rather autonomously. "Rumours and urban legends tend to be more truthful than not."

He didn't add much beyond that.

While all of those conversations were going on, he gave the occasional glance at Al to watch him. Having someone who could perceive something else was, of course, something that Armand couldn't do.

He affirmed the others thoughts. What was new was the final clue.

The room was silent as he unveiled his final piece. Uncomfortably silent, but only for a second before Armand gave out a "hm."

"An eye..." He said as he rubbed his stubble once again.

What insight could the great chief have?

"Never seen it before," he unceremoniously said. "No demons or humans I know have eyes like that."

He rose from his knee and stretched with hands on his back. The other detectives could nearly hear the cracking and creaking of a man who had knelt for too long.

"Well, there's not point in sitting around here. Photos were taken, what little there was of import has been bagged. I'll call preservation to fully secure this place."

He walked began to walk towards the exit before stopping as if remembering something he overlooked.

"Dezzie--you're a ride-along today. Technically, you're a suspect. You're also a survivor, which means whatever did this might want to finish the job. I'm sure you'd prefer sitting around with some real detectives instead of returning to an office that has a rat that sold out your little audit to gang members. Welcome to the team."

Dezzie knew from her handbook that the Section 7 chief's words superceded whatever duties she currently had.

He then addressed the rest of the team.

"Here's some suggestions for you detectives. Check out the Floating District. Ask around in some soaplands and hostess clubs there--there's probably a few florists nearby. Kick down the door of their back offices in their businesses. Talk to their heads and enforcers. I'm sure they're sitting around in fear since news of this place got out. Or you can follow up with the survivor. See what he has to say--though, four years ago was a long time ago. Or just go off and follow your hunch. I'm going to go confirm these since I am now in a rush. If they are what they think I are..."

He didn't finish the thought.

"Good luck, Officer Blackhand," Lorelei chimed, as the well-connected young lad headed off. There really wasn't much else to do at the scene, after all. After a few months, it was clear to the career cop that if a case could be solved by following proper police procedures, Section 7 wouldn't be called in to deal with it.

Which was a shame, since she had spent most of her life remembering policies and procedures, but hey. When in Rome?

"I'll be callin' up the girls at the Floating District then," Lorelei said. She cast a eye towards Barbatos. "You're coming with, right? And Dezzie, you can ride along too!" It was a bit forceful, perhaps, but she figured that kicking down Saniwa doors or interrogating a washed-up crime lord would be a bit too intense for an expert desk jockey like Section 6's Employee of Eternity. Without further pause, the brunette struck an almost runway-esque gait as she headed to her own vehicle: a vintage sedan that smelled of pine and donuts. She popped open the shotgun seat for Barbatos, let the tech whiz into the backseats with the donuts, and within another minute or two, they pulled out of the ruined estate onto the main street, city pop on the speakers as Lorelei's hands danced upon the steering wheel.

...

"My treat this time." Lorelei swept a hand out towards the rows and racks of fancy (perhaps to the point of ostentation) clothes, her voice muted within the crowded warehouse that was Uncommon Vintage. "Pick a couple of things out; the girls aren't gonna like it if we scare off their clients by looking like cops."

Only a quarter of a reason, really. One of her goals back in Section 6 was to take Dezzie clothes shopping sometime, because she had ideas for the lithe, dainty lady. Now? She had at least a shot of making it happen.

It'd be nice if she saw Barbatos costume-swap over to a vibe that was more 'son of a mafia boss' too. He could pull it off, and the gap would be absolutely riveting

---

_{With: Everyone
Location: Saniwa Family Estate}

---

Al's sketch was pretty unnerving, but Barbatos guessed that's what made his art so good. Eliciting feelings and all that. Barbatos squinted at the drawing and tilted his head. He didn't recall seeing anyone with eyes like that, false or otherwise, but he'd pay more attention going forward. With the preliminary investigation winding down Barbatos finished his latte (that he'd gratefully accepted) and crumpled the cup, tossing it into the 'incinerator' too. Time to split up, like usual.

"The suspense, chief, always with the suspense," he said before starting to shuffle towards the exit. He really wanted to see the crime-mobile, but he'd get another chance. Besides, riding with Kelly probably wouldn't be the best use of his time or talents, what few he had. Barbatos met Lorelei's look with a grin.

"Of course!" he chirped. "I got a rapport with a lot of them over there."

Okay he hadn't meant that to sound as skeevy as it did, but it was true. Many hosts, hostesses and working girls appreciated a regular conversation between clients, and oh man, the stories they told. Chatting with them was fun, and if he was a little extra free security for them when he was around there was nothing wrong with that... and if on the rare occasion he got pushed by a club matron to support the business a little more directly then, you know, stuff happened. All good.

Speaking of stories though, Barbatos turned his grin at Dezzie as he and the pair of ladies made their way to Lorelei's ride. "You guys can tell me about when you worked together before!"

---

_{With: Lorelei, Dezzie
Location: Shoppiiiiiing}

---

Barbatos blinked down at the positively casual outfit he was wearing. Then down further at the socks and sandals combo (you weren't supposed to be open toed at a crime scene but that's what the socks were for). After a beat he looked back at Lorelei with a smile that was part sheepish, part appreciative.

"You think I look like a cop right now?" he asked, light-hearted. "Aww, thanks."

His tail was raised slightly off the floor so any patron of the store moving around wouldn't trip over it. He hadn't expected the stop for clothes and was now a little out of his element. Of course since Lorelei had fed him like she usually did, he wasn't about to complain about her plans - especially if she was offering to pay. He kiiiiiinda wanted to take her up on that, but she already did so much for the team.

"You don't have to, Lor. I paid off some debts last month so I'm good." He seemed pleased about it. "Oh! I should take you out to dinner after the case wraps up to pay you back for the thing. You too Dezzie, it'll be fun."

And what the hell, he'd probably invite Yam as well. Unfortunately he wasn't made of money and the Section 7 salary wasn't that great, so the guys would have to pay their own way if they found out and tagged along.

Still, despite saying all of that Barbatos hardly moved. He eyed a few pieces and a few price tags, but otherwise seemed content to just stand there with his dumb smile. Maybe waiting for Dezzie to pick something first, or maybe seeing if Lorelei might let him off the hook.