Chapter Four
Morning came far too early.
Emma woke to the sound of her phone going off, and blinked, trying to orient herself. It was still dim outside, and she felt for her phone in the low light, and when she finally got a hold of it, she found it was the station calling.
"Fuck," Emma muttered to herself, and she swiped to answer. "What's up, Mulan?"
Mulan had started as a deputy but had taken on a larger role at the station while Emma and her father had been away, and now that they were tied up with this investigation, Emma was ever grateful for the extra help, though she knew a call this early couldn't be good.
"We've got another one," Mulan said simply.
"Another one?" Emma asked, hoping she didn't mean what she thought she meant. Mulan hadn't really been involved in the investigation thus far, so Emma held on to the shred of hope that it was just a poor choice of words and maybe she meant another dwarf incident that needed more than one person to break it up.
But, Emma never got off that lucky.
"Murder."
Emma sighed. "Who?"
"The Blue Fairy."
"Wait… what? How… she's a fairy for crying out loud… how could she be murdered?" Emma was still holding on tight to her belief that whoever the killer was, they were non-magical, but there was no way a mortal could murder a fairy, especially not one as powerful as the Blue Fairy, was there?
"I'm not sure. Nova called us, I haven't gone yet, I…"
"Right," Emma said, knowing that Mulan meant she didn't want to go alone. Emma couldn't blame her. Mulan hadn't seen the first crime scene, though she'd heard about how gruesome it was. It wasn't that Mulan hadn't seen her fair share of bloodshed in her life, but Emma knew too well that this was different. "I'll be right there."
Emma dressed as quickly as possible, standard tight jeans and a white tank under her red leather jacket, and threw her hair up into a messy ponytail before hurrying out the door. She only gave Hook a small glance, and noted that he hadn't moved a muscle all night. It would likely be several more hours until he woke, and no doubt started drinking all over again.
But that was a problem for later. She had more pressing issues to deal with now.
The sun was almost fully risen by the time Mulan and Emma pulled up at the convent. Nova, along with several other of the fairies, was outside, looking frazzled.
"Oh, Emma, Mulan, I'm so glad you're both here. It's… it's awful."
Emma just nodded as she and Mulan followed Nova inside, and through the long hallways to the Blue Fairy's large bedroom. The bed was made up, but Emma wasn't completely sure if the fairies actually slept, or if the bed was just a carry over from the curse.
Either way, it didn't matter, because moments later Emma's eyes became fixated on the form on the floor. Blue was laying contorted on the ground, similarly to how they'd found Whale, blood pooled all around her.
Emma swallowed as she allowed herself to look around the room. All the windows were closed tight, not surprisingly. "Did anyone see anything?"
Nova shook her head. "Some of us heard a scream, but by the time we located it, it was too late. Whoever did it was gone, and she was… well…"
"Right." Emma nodded. "Well, we'll have to call and ambulance to have her transported to the hospital for an autopsy."
"Oh, no, you can't do that," Nova replied, shaking her head.
"We need to. This is a murder investigation. You can still have a service for her afterward, and a burial…"
"No, Emma, you don't understand. She's a fairy, not a mortal. It's different for us."
"Different, how?" Emma asked, confused.
Nova smiled. "She'll be reincarnated, Emma. Once the sun rises fully, she'll vanish, and be reborn again, someday. This is why we had to call the moment we found her. Time was already running out."
Emma let out a long sigh. "Cool. That's not ideal, but…" Emma pulled out her phone and started taking some photos, to preserve as much evidence as she could before Blue disappeared.
And, just as Nova had predicted, as soon as the morning sun fully illuminated the room through the large windows, Blue's body began to glow, and slowly fade away. It was mesmerizing, and though Emma had never been particularly close to Blue, it was reassuring to know she wasn't really gone, forever. She was sure that was why Nova was beaming from across the room.
When it was over, Emma's eyes went right to what she'd guessed would be there. A playing card.
"What's that?" Nova asked, following Emma's gaze.
Emma didn't respond, but rather put on her gloved and picked up the card that was laying face down, and held it up for Mulan to see.
"Three of hearts," Mulan commented, nodding. David had already filled her in, and Emma decided not to explain it to Nova. The less people who knew about it, the better.
Emma also wasn't surprised to see one of the hearts crossed out in black marker. There was no question in her mind that the killer was keeping count, but the question still remained: how many more people were on the list?
In fact, the Blue Fairy's death only served to raise even more questions. She was magical, but her murder appeared anything but. Even without the autopsy, knowing exactly where to look, Emma had clearly seen that her heart, too, had been cut right out of her chest.
"Who could murder a fairy like this?" Emma asked suddenly, turning to Nova. "It appears non-magical, but how is that possible?"
Nova shook her head. "I've never seen or heard of anything like this," she admitted. "It shouldn't be possible."
Emma nodded. "So it has to be magic. Someone who can clearly use magic is just choosing to be as brutal as possible. But why?"
"The Blue Fairy," Regina said, shaking her head. After Emma and Mulan had finished processing the crime scene to the best of their abilities, Mulan had gone back to the station to fill David in, and Emma had headed to Regina's to keep her posted, as she'd promised she would.
"I really liked her," Regina continued, with a small shrug, "but I certainly never would have wished for this to happen."
"Yeah…" Emma said, nodding. "I mean, with Whale, the list of possible suspects was huge, but with Blue… it certainly narrows it down. There's not many I can think of who had a beef with her and…"
"And?" Regina prompted.
"And whoever it was, they had to have magic." Emma looked at Regina then, attempting to process her reaction to that.
"You don't think I'm a suspect, do you?" Regina asked, narrowing her eyes.
"What? No! God, Regina… if I did, do you think I'd be here sharing all this information with you?"
"So who, then?"
Emma chewed on her lip. If Regina wasn't going to suggest it, then she'd have to. "Uh… have you ever thought that maybe… what we saw in New York… you know, you're… other half… disappearing… maybe it wasn't exactly what we thought?"
"You think the Evil Queen is still out there? Is here?"
"I mean, is it completely out of the realm of possibilities?"
"You saw me destroy her," Regina pointed out.
"Yeah, but… didn't it seem too easy to you? And, really, how much do we really know about how that potion worked?"
"Oh, I see. So, you don't think it's me, but really, you think it's me."
"No! No, Regina, I don't think it's you. I don't think it's the woman sitting beside me right now. But… you said yourself how hard it was to fight back against those impulses you had. What if there were a version of you that was none of the woman sitting beside me right now, and only that dark impulse. No conscious, no self-control…"
Regina swallowed. "Well, then I guess we'd really see what true evil looks like."
It was only mid-afternoon when Emma got back home, but it had already felt like an eternity since she'd left that morning.
"Where've you been?"
Emma sighed as she caught the slight slurring in Hook's voice as she took her boots off at the door, and she knew he was already well into the rum.
"Working."
"That's all you ever seem to do these days, Swan. Work, work, work."
"Well, it's a hell of a lot more than what you do all day, isn't it?" Emma asked, making her way into the living room only to find more dirty plates and an empty bottle of rum on the coffee table. "Not all of us have the luxury of sitting around drinking all day."
"Well maybe I wouldn't have to drink all day if I wasn't left alone all day, would I? I moved in with a girlfriend, not a workaholic."
"Oh, so this is my fault, then? Do you have any idea how stressful this case is? Have you even been paying attention? There's a murderer loose in Storybrooke, so sorry if you have to keep yourself entertained while I'm out there keeping everyone safe."
"Murderer," Hook snorted. "Everyone knows it's either Regina or her sister. Maybe both of them."
Emma crossed her arms. "Oh yeah? Please enlighten me on how you solved his case sitting on your ass in front of the TV all day?"
"Well, it's not that hard to pin murder on a mass murderer, is it? You know what she was like after her first boyfriend died. What makes you think she's so different now?"
"Because I know her," Emma shot back. "And, she's not the only person in this town who's committed murder, is she?"
"Regina likes the darkness. She always has, and she always will. I don't care what parts of her she ripped out and destroyed because, guess what? She wasn't evil until she turned evil and she can do it all again, can't she?"
"You're drunk. Clean up your shit and talk to me when you're sober. I'm not listening to this."
With that, Emma turned to head for the stairs.
"Clean up your shit," Hook called after her. "You look like hell."
Emma closed her eyes and gritted her teeth as she climbed up the stairs. Was this really what she'd travelled to the underworld for? As much as it pained her to admit it, maybe she would have been better to leave well enough alone. Maybe it wasn't just the Dark One curse that had made Hook say all those awful things to her in the past…
She tried to shake it from her mind. There were more pressing issues to deal with right now: not just solving a murder, well two murders now, but also making sure her best friend's name didn't get dragged through the mud in the process. Hook may have been drunk, but Emma knew he probably wasn't wrong in suggesting that most of Storybrooke was already blaming Reigna. They always did, didn't they?
She needed to get to the bottom of this, and fast. For the towns safety, and also Regina's.
