Phantom had watched for the past few minutes as her secretaries, Marianne and Christiane, tapped the information on the case into the database. The violin case was on the table, a black tiara with five points tipped in rubies was laid besides it. Not bothering to look up to her mistress, Marianne began to summarise the case.
"Mission was to retrieve and defeat. Villain defeated was called 'The Beast'. First death of villain recorded." Marianne began.
"Congratulations, ma'm." Christiane smiled as Phantom gave her an acknowledging nod.
"Item retrieved in a violin case. Main objective was to retrieve the Beast's Diadem, anything else left in the case is ours. Casualties: one, permanent memory wipe. Case closed."
Phantom unceremoniously dumped the remaining contents of the case onto the floor of the Hold. Christophe, the keeper, shook his head with a sigh.
"Ma'm, that's not how you treat your treasure. You need to handle it with care like a newborn babe."
Phantom shrugged. "My preferences are with the kind of wealth that cannot be stolen while you accumulate it. Like knowledge. Material wealth isn't my forte."
Christophe chuckled. "Even though you say that, your eyes still on the prize of a hunt. I know you still love taking exquisite and unique treasures."
"What can I say? Exquisite and unique luxuries are a woman's best life partner."
Phantom examined the contents while Christophe began to arrange them into the many shelves and crates of treasure. It was mostly shining coins and glittering jewels, nothing special from the usual daily haul. She regretted that she did not just leave it to Christophe to go through by himself in the Hold but Gaston was busy with other arrangements and the maids didn't want to leave their stations in case the occasional dust bunny came into their sights.
Her eyes scanned the treasure, the shine of the coins and jewels were burning themselves into her eyes. She blinked, pushing her lavender hair out of her eyes and tucked the strands behind her ear.
"Christophe...?"
Christophe's head popped around a stack of crates. "Tired already, miss? You should've left it to me."
"No, it's not that. Come and look at this."
"What… is that…?"
There, amongst the glimmering jewels and coins, lay a strange talisman. It was decorated with four opals that swirled with many colours and four accompanying stones in between, their colour as crimson as fresh blood, surrounding a silver reflection. A small silver claw separated each stone from ever touching.
Phantom used her cane to pick up the talisman's silver chain. It looked relatively harmless and could possibly be worth avery pretty penny but nothing good came out of something that came out of a case meant to be used by a monster.
"Don't touch it."
Phantom narrowed her eyes at Christophe, who had a terrified look on his face. "Does it look like I want to touch it? Go get Marianne."