“As you can see,” he laughed with a snort, trying not to groan at himself as he did so, “anyone who interferes with my duties will be, ahha,” he pressed his glasses up his nose one more time, “jailed.”
The gears almost audibly ticked away inside her head. Her eyes scanned over the papers. What was visible of her forehead crinkled away as she got further down. She shoved the papers back into Devon’s chest.
He stumbled backwards as if she’d punched him.
“I’ll need to contact my superiors.” She started to pull out a cellphone.
“You do that,” Devon said as he adjusted his glasses once again; he was adjusting them less for show and more because they irritated him. “I’ll get started. I ah, hope the trail hasn’t run cold because of your delay.”
He shuffled past her. Despite her moving to block the way, Devon slunk around her arm. He hopped up to the front door and, inside and out of the nun’s sight, stepped straight from the bottom of the stairs to the top.
The master bedroom looked like a drunk tornado spent the night. Not a single piece of furniture looked intact. Large stains of dried blood pooled near the door, the center of the room, and the bathroom entrance. Smaller trails connected the three points.
Between them all, and several other spots in the room, were ashen hoof prints. They had burned into the hardwood flooring.
Devon knelt down and brushed some of the ash onto his finger. He brought it up to his nose and took a brief sniff. Using all the air in his lungs, Devon quickly expelled the foul scent from his nostrils.
Brimstone, he winced. It lacked the distinct yellow color, but the odor was unmistakable.
He walked back out of the room to the staircase.
No tracks led up. Just a few paces away from the doorway, two hoof marks appeared side by side. The entire surrounding area had been scorched around ankle height. The walls and floorboards looked like someone had done a poor job spray painting them black.
The footprints had a huge distance between them. Either the demon took large lunges for steps or he had legs up to Devon’s chest. The ceiling wasn’t that high. He’d be hunched over the entire time.
Not very intimidating.
Though, he thought as he looked at the blood splatter around the doorway, if it could do that much damage before the nun could react, it wouldn’t have to look intimidating.
Devon stalked back to the bathroom.
Slumped against the door seemed to be the end of whatever guarded the room. The body had been removed. The telltale signs of a body hitting the door and sliding down were left behind.
The bathroom wasn’t large. A closet and a small bathtub sat inside one wall, a counter with a single sink and a toilet against the other wall. There was a small aisle between.
The footsteps did something odd. They stopped. Two others, facing the opposite direction, were burned into the floor against the wall opposite of the door.
Clothes lay crumpled against the counter and water filled the tub. The abducted nun was in the bath. But the footsteps, why did they teleport to the wall?
He tried to recreate the scene. He searched through the bathroom. It wasn’t until he found a red, orb-type focus half hidden beneath the crumpled clothes that he put it together. He slipped it into his pocket. No reason to let a good focus go to waste.
She was in the bath, but jumped out and tried to fight. The demon teleported behind her.
Then what.
Devon moved back to the bedroom and took a look around. The window had been completely shattered. That fit in somehow. The hoof prints came to an end next to the window. They didn’t turn or go anywhere. Devon peeked out the window.
The window opened over the side of the house. Devon stepped out, onto the snow.
A large impact hit and slid across the snowy ground. The snow was melting somewhat, but enough remained behind to be plainly visible. A pair of footprints, bare feet by the look of it, trailed off towards the front side of the house.
No hoof marks were anywhere in the snow.
None on the sidewalk either.
It didn’t chase her?
Devon frowned and made his way back inside. He used the back door to avoid the nun around the front.
In the bedroom once again, Devon started snooping. He pulled open desk drawers. He sifted through remains of the marble table.
The only thing of any notice was the melted hunk of plastic and metal that might have been a laptop at one point in its life. Devon had no hope of recovering anything useful from its hard drives.
Devon pulled out a prepared card. A small ritual circle covered one side. He scraped a good pile of ash from one of the hoof marks onto the center of the circle. He found a relatively clear spot on the floor and set the card down.
As he channeled magic into the circle, a small flame erupted. It stayed the standard red and yellow for only a moment before it flared a brilliant purple.
Devon sighed as he stared deep into the flame.
“Find something interesting?”
Devon stumbled forwards, his sleeve caught fire. Luckily the demonic flame gave way to regular fire that he quickly patted out. He sighed again. That was his favorite trench coat. He quickly stomped out the indicator flame with the soles of his much more hardy combat boots.
A nun, wearing a black habit rather than the standard white, stood in the doorway. Just behind her sneered the white-robed nun from the entryway.
Devon immediately readjusted his glasses–they actually needed it this time. “Tell me,” he said, “who was it that was kidnapped?”
The lead nun narrowed her eyes. “A subordinate of mine. The nun’s identity is not up for disclosure.”
“Was she actually kidnapped?”
“What else would you call what happened here? I have one dead and one missing nun. The demon that attacked did not attempt to cover its tracks at all.”
“No, I ah, suppose not. In that case, who did you piss off?”
The nun blinked at that. “What do you mean?”
“That,” he pointed to the little stomped on scrap of paper with a snort, “burned bright purple. You know what purple represents?”
“Royalty,” she almost snarled.
“Oh, an educated nun. Surprising.” Devon wasn’t lying. It may have been a guess. Purple was traditionally a royal color. Yet it wasn’t incorrect in this situation. “The question then becomes, why is one of the seventy-two after your nun?”
She glowered. Not really at him, but her entire face darkened. “Frankly, Mr…”
“Carter,” Devon said as he offered a hand. His only hand.
She didn’t spare it a second glance. “Mr. Carter, I think it is time for you to go.”
Devon pulled back his hand to his chest. He let his fingers twitch before the dove into his trench coat and withdrew his forged documents. “I have these papers that–”
The papers exploded out of his hand as a lightning bolt struck them. Tiny flakes drifted to the floor in a miniature snowstorm.
“Well I never,” he said as he thrust his glasses up on his face. “My superiors will be hearing about this.”
“You tell them that this is an internal matter of the Elysium Order. Do not let me catch you skulking about our business again, Mr. Carter.” She stepped to one side of the door and thrust her arm out, pointing at the doorway.
She almost caught the white-robed nun in the chest. That nun hopped to one side of the door. She stared as Devon quickly made his way past.
He had at least three more tests to run, more depending on the results. It wasn’t worth getting a blast in the face over.
The white-robed nun followed him out, all but stepping on his heels. The other nun didn’t follow. She stopped at the edge of the property.
Devon could feel her eyes glaring holes into his back as he walked off.
— — —
“So?”
“Stay out of it. I sure as hell am.”
Eva crossed her arms. She tried to glare at her master, but it didn’t seem to have much of an effect. “You can tell me what you found.”