MADDIE POV:
"Maddie! Francis! Ivan! Get in here!" Alfred's voice carried through the halls of Maddie's new home. She was pleased to find out that since she had an ability she got a free pass to stay at the agency for only $18 dollars per month for rent, living there along with everyone else. Her room was the smallest in the area, but she wasn't picky, she had few belongings anyway. Plain walls painted a beige color were bare and gave a slightly cold and remote feeling. Putting down the last of her move-in boxes on her bed, she brushed herself off before running down the halls. Before she could reach the place though, she was stopped as her foot caught onto a loose piece of carpet. As she started to fall over, strong arms caught her.
She turned to see Francis, gently smiling as always. "S-sorry, Francis." She apologized quickly, jumping out of his warm arms.
"Pas de problème, je vous attraper un jour, chère." Ever since he had found out that she understood his language, even if only a little bit, he made it his goal to speak it around her.
"Still, I have to thank you somehow this is the fourth time you have caught me, eh. What would you like in return?"
"Rien apporte une plus grande joie pour moi, que d'aider la femme qui a pris mon cœur." He replied. "We should probably go see what the others want, no?" Not quite understanding what those first words meant, and making a mental note to brush up on her French, she just nodded and left the Frenchman to his business.
"Took you long enough," Alice said as Maddie entered the office. For the past couple of days Alice had began to be more brisk with her, Felicia saying that it was normal- she was only polite to newbies and customers. She was stationed behind a computer, Alfred and the others were all sitting down in a circle. A person, probably the newest customer, was sitting in the middle of the circling couches. He was tall and had the look of a man that had been pushed to his final stand. Bag's were hidden under his eyes, his skin losing color quickly as they entered, and the black clothes could mean only one thing, he was in mourning.
"Now that we are all together, Mr. Brunner would you mind re-explaining what you were telling me and Alice earlier?" Alfred asked, for once making his always obnoxiously loud voice comforting.
"Alice and me." Alice put in.
"What?"
"You mixed up your grammar. It's supposed to be Alice and me, not me and Alice."
"Whatever," Alfred rolled his eyes and looked back at the man.
"My name is Daniel Brunner, until a couple years ago I was living with my second wife, Bella, in Chicago. I got transferred to a different occupation in Albuquerque. Once we moved into our new house strange things have been happening. It's near a graveyard but isn't an old home, built around 20 years ago, and we used to think that that was why we would have the chills but that wasn't it. None of our neighbors are having any problems, just us. It used to be a couple odd things a day, doors closing out of nowhere, the room temperature going wacky, and other small things. But it got worse a few months ago. People from the neighborhood were going missing, dogs barking in the middle of the night as if something was frightening them, and then the children would start going on about this 'pretty lady' that hanged outside their windows. I stayed up once and saw her too. She was all white, her hair, skin, everything! She immediately disappeared when I started to approach.
"I asked local priests for help but they don't know what to do, so I tried a seance with the town Psychic," Alice discreetly muttered something about 'phonys' screwing everything up, "but it only succeeded in making her angry. She went after the children, and grabbed my youngest, Mary Lou. She's still in the hospital but the lady kept coming back. And a couple days ago, she…" He struggled to maintain his breathing, on the verge of crying. Felicia walked over and rubbed his back soothingly, looking at Alfred for help.
"You don't have to continue if you don't want to." Alfred said.
"No, I need to." After a little while he motioned for Felicia to go back to her seat and continued, "The- the thing got Bella. I was gone but Sam and Tristan, my sons were there. Apparently Bella was in the bath, trying to calm down since she was just as disturbed by this ghost, and the lady came and f-forced h-her head into" he paused to try and control his sobs, "It forced her under the water and drowned her." Mr. Brunner had to take another shaky breath. "This has gone on too long, I saw your website while I was trying to figure out what this thing is. I need your help."
"We have a website?" Maddie asked in a whisper to Francis.
"Malheureusement, yes. We can't necessarily advertise our company out in the open. People would get en colère." He muttered back. She hid a small smile as he exhaled slowly.
"So, Daniel, may I call you Daniel?" Alfred didn't wait for a reply and continued, "We can totally help, we are the heroes after all! Now could you leave us your address and we'll be there by the end of the week at latest." Mr. Brunner nodded and scribbled a quick address down on to some paper on the table, quickly leaving. "Well, that went well."
"You, bloody dolt!" Alice smacked him in the back of the head once Mr. Brunner was out of the building. "We don't even know what in the world is actually going on! This could end like the Bloody Mary case!" Everyone grimaced as the case was mentioned.
"But we won that one." Alfred weakly put.
"We almost lost half of our team from blood loss! Felicia and Ludwig got trapped in a freaking house of mirrors and you say we won? They nearly died!"
"Ve, but we didn't and it is our job to help people with supernatural problems. It's not like we can abandon this man, you all saw how broken he was, he is going to go mad if we don't help. Anyone would at this rate." Felicia whispered, picking at her hands. She was normally never quiet, always happy and ready to share a joke or her cooking. Ludwig put a hand on her shoulder as if to comfort her in some way that only he knew how.
"Well, I'll be more careful this time around." Alfred said. "Besides, we do know what we are getting into now. There are only a few myths that are related to a pretty lady in white. It could be a banshee, Lady in White, possibly another Bloody Mary, Onryō, or possibly a Grey Lady. So we have some idea of how to deal with it."
Alice rolled her eyes, not wanting to have to argue with him at the moment. "Fine, but don't expect me to be nice when I say 'told you so'."
"Why do you even doubt my intelligence? I know what I am doing." Alice just huffed and stormed off.
"That's vhat she is worried about. None of those ghosts take kindly to exorcisms. Vith the best of luck, ve'll come out of this vith only two or three broken bones a piece. Ve could all die if it's an onryō, they don't take kindly to anyone spiritually attuned. Hope that it is only a banshee or a very veak Lady in White." Ludwig spoke for the second time that Maddie had been there. They all blinked, since when did he talk for longer than a few words; that was a full on paragraph.
Even Ivan was surprised, though he was the first to get over it and say, "Ludwig is right, da?" He smiled and put an arm over Tao's shoulders, in no way subtle. The, who Maddie had learned was in fact Chinese, girl blushed and quickly shoved off his arm, folding her own arms in the process.
"We should probably get ready for the trip, eh?" Maddie tore everyone's eyes off of them. They all took her words into consideration for a minute, like it hadn't occurred to them that they should pack for the long drive or for the case. What was with these people? Where they that scared? Shouldn't they know how to deal with the fear by now?
"Ve, right you are!" Felicia jumped to her feet, cheery once again and grabbed Maddie by the arm and pulled the Canadian after her, leaving the others in their dust, making their way to the equipment room.
Translations:
Pas de problème , je vous attraper un jour, chère- No problem, I would catch you any day, my dear
Rien apporte une plus grande joie pour moi, que d'aider la femme qui a pris mon cœur- Nothing brings greater joy to me, than helping the woman who has caught my heart.
Malheureusement- unfortunately
En colère- angry
Author Notes:
Hi. I really like this person's story, and yes I based this off of the first episode of Supernatural, mostly because that is why I have been watching recently, but don't worry it won't be Supernatural based the whole time. I also feel sorry for Maddie, I should have made this PruCan. Oh, well.