A/N: I'm very sorry, it has been a while since I've posted on this website, and I was rushing to do it before an appointment. I not only had a duplicate chapter but a chapter of nonsense formating. Took the messed up chapters down and will repost them correctly. So sorry again!
The first time the girl summoned the demons, she was barely a week past the fateful day when she received both her name and her curse, and until that night her parents hadn't taken the old woman very seriously at all.
He flickered the lid of the pocketwatch and watched the hand tick further past 12 between flashes of gold. The train had arrived in the station on the hour exactly and it wasn't like his sister to be late. Certainly not Mia with the precisely folded letters free of ink splotches and regularly dated at weekly intervals-whether or not they made their way to him on time was another thing entirely. His own correspondence was much less diligent, but he had been sure to mail the last announcing his arrival to South Reach. Frowning, he tucked the watch back into the khaki uniform pocket and tried to ignore the clucking whispers of the two matrons with nothing better to do than gossip while their driver loaded the car with mountains of luggage.
"Rather dashing in person...do you think he would come to tea? Kitty could certainly make the most of it."
Now that was a tone he had come too passing familiar with in the last few weeks. Andraste preserve him from matchmaking mothers. Forgetting himself, he muttered that epithet aloud. Loudly enough that the aging socialites let out a pair of offended gasps and whirled around in a flurry of furious whispers, sparing him at last.
But he was to have no peace, apparently, as a feminine voice at his other side asked almost immediately after, "Captain Rutherford?"
Feeling sufficiently henpecked by the opposite sex, Cullen huffed, "I...yes, but please, the title is completely unnecessary. A technicality at this point.."
The damn war had ended a year ago after all. But he didn't add that and was glad he didn't when he looked up at the woman who had approached him. No fluttering maiden extending an invitation for afternoon tea, this one.
She was dressed impeccably in a suit of tailored burgundy wool that obviously cost a pretty sum, even to his untrained eye. The crisp white collar emphasized the decisive jut of her scarred chin as she looked down at him with cool regard. Glittering at her lapel was a jeweled pin depicting an all-seeing eye.
"As you like." she finally replied, "I have something to discuss with you. Perhaps a cup of tea at the cafe while you wait for your sister?
He did not ask how an agent of the Seekers knew who he was waiting for. Neither did he ask if her organization had a hand in whatever delayed Mia because he already knew it to be true. Instead, he found himself smiling at the sheer lunacy of it. An invitation to tea after all. He did not expect to ever receive one from a woman carrying not one but two handguns, the bulk of which were cleverly disguised by the cut of her suit. Sobering, he reigned in the perverse twist of humor still lingering at the corner of his scarred lip.
"My sister is safe?" he asked.
The question affronted, if the curl of her lip was any evidence,"Of course. I'm not here to force your cooperation."
"Well then, I suppose I wouldn't mind taking refreshment in the meanwhile."
How else was he supposed to get to the bottom of what the Seekers of Truth wanted with him?
The cafe was full of travellers, a din of hurried conversations. Not a few men in khaki, looking hollowed out and jumpy with every clatter of a cup against a china saucer. Cullen grimaced in empathy, drawing a finger over the cool metal filagree of the watch tucked in his pocket. The Seeker led them to a small table by the pane of glass outlooking the rest of the station. It was somehow secluded from the press of feathered hats and bustling waitstaff and as he sat down, he noted that the noise was substantially lower through some miracle of acoustics.
After they ordered their tea, or coffee in his case, she reached into the inside of the faintly pinstriped jacket and produced a small, stoppered bottle the size of his thumb. Inside tumbled two pale pink tablets.
"Am I right to assume this looks familiar?" she asked, handing the bottle over for him to inspect closer. He didn't need to but he took it from her anyway. For a moment, he could almost smell the ethyl ether mingled in with the buttery toast and jam from the next table over. His stomach turned and as if on cue, the server arrived with their drinks. Afternoon light caught on the silver carafe and the aroma of the coffee wafting out clung in a bitter film on his tongue. Taking a sip of his water to quell the seething turn of his lost appetite, Cullen set the bottle back down between them.
"Yes." he replied tersely.
"Would it surprise you to learn that one of these was collected from Klinloch Sanitarium?"
He raised an eyebrow, "Should it?"
The sharp angles of her face considered his nonchalance, "Perhaps it would if you knew that only one is the genuine thing. The other, the one from Klinloch, is a sugar pill."
Beads of condensation gathering on the glass pooled down between the joints of his fingers. Curiously, the chill drew all the intensity of his focus, leaving him hyper aware of the rivulet forming in the crease of his palm. It was shockingly cold, numbing almost. Releasing the glass, he wiped his palm against the lace-trimmed napkin at his lap but he couldn't banish the numbness spreading from the tips of his fingers through his arm, creeping through his chest like anaesthetic.
"When did you collect it?"
Sugar pills. His mind turned the words over and over with all the detachment of a watchmaker settling into place the final gear that made the whole thing whirr and spin.
"After the...influenza killed every doctor and patient save the select few who remain missing to this day. And you, of course"
Her strange emphasis at the word told him everything he needed to know. Influenza had been the official story sent to the presses, something the public could digest without going into a panic. It was clear that this woman was well aware of the truth. More than he was because until this moment, he had never understood what really happened.
"Mr. Rutherford, we have been investigating how someone managed to replace the medication given to the patients and why. So far, we've traced placebo substitutions to at least five other sanatoria in across Thedas, and done our best to minimize the damage. But..it is complicated."
Unflappable till this point, she ran a hand through her shortly cropped hair in frustration, "To be honest with you, we have one good lead on getting to the bottom of all this and it makes no sense at all. It's...fantastical to say the least.
Of course it was. Nothing made sense alone. His thoughts gyred in precise, unhurried revolutions. Little details he'd long since brushed away ticked away in concert as their incomprehensible edges fit together, form out of chaos.
"In Ostwick, there is a woman with a cursed hand. With it, she can summon demons. Physically. According to the rumors, it happens by accident whenever she is very distressed or angry. We were able to confirm at least two incidents, each of which resulted in the death of one of the household staff."
"By accident? She summons demons and has already killed two people?" Cullen scoffed, " It's clear what this is."
"I would agree with you, but our information indicates that she is not afflicted. It will be impossible to know without first hand observation."
All at once, he was tired of their meeting. The woman was driving at something but she was taking her time to get to it. Oddly, he got the distinct feeling that she was just as annoyed with the loitering around the point as he was.
"So what do you want with me?"
She leaned back in her chair suddenly, looking relieved to reach the crux of it all, "We need your help. Somehow this woman is tied up with what happened at Klinloch."
The cafe was suddenly very loud, ringing in his ears like tinnitus, "I'm just a soldier...not even that anymore."
Steely eyed, she lifted her chin, "No. You are a hero, like it or not. And You're the only one who witnessed what happened at the sanitorium first hand, the only one who could even recognize the patients who escaped.."
Taking a sip of what was undoubtedly cold tea, she continued, "I'm asking on behalf of the Divine Justinia. You would be in a special investigative task force and you would be acting with complete autonomy under the guise of a diplomatic envoy. I'll admit, your fame would lend us some credibility but that is merely an added benefit."
Cullen was silent for a moment, "You're asking me to go to Ostwick."
She nodded, draining what remained in the porcelain cup before pulling a card from her vest pocket and standing to leave, "I'm asking you to think on it. Unfortunately, we are pressed for time. You do not have long to do so."
Placing the card on the table and straightening her jacket, she continued, " If you decide to aid us in this investigation, your train ticket will be waiting at the office. We depart for Amaranthine at 4 o'clock. Today."
Before she turned to go, he heard himself ask, "Who specifically do you need me to recognize? And Why?"
But she didn't answer. Instead, she walked away and left him alone at the table with the cooling remains of coffee and tea.
The calling card was stiff in his fingers; creme stock, elaborate scrollwork curling around the edges, flowing silver script embossed into the paper. Cassandra Pentaghast.
He sat with it pressed between his thumb and forefinger, watching the influx of people both arriving and disembarking from the station, weaving between iron benches and luggage carts. In the press, he saw the gleam of blonde hair twisted up into a chignon. His sister, arrived at last.
He made his way over just as another train pulled into the station, a whir of massive, churning metal whipping up air to mingle into columns of coal ash billowing from the engine compartments. A bell dinged, signifying the impending surge of even more bodies onto the platform. She stood apart from the chaos, smoking a cigarette. There was another woman with her, frowning and speaking rapidly.
"Oh! What a disaster, I should have gone barely told him anything at all!"
Tapping the ash from her cigarette, Cassandra made a disgusted noise, "I'm not completely incompetent Josephine. There was no point in discussing all the insignificant details."
Josephine sighed, jotting down a note in the pad of paper clutched against the decorative gold braiding weaving around the edges of her black gloves.
"But you just came right out and said it. You didn't even mention anything that would incentivize a rationally thinking person to-"
As neither seemed to register his presence any time soon, Cullen cleared his throat, "I'm assuming there are some forms I'll be needing to fill out."
There were always forms.