Myne listened as her twisted sister's message came in, and slowly she added notes to the board on everything her sister got out of the old bastard elf. She'd just finished doing that when Yuri Alpha returned holding a thick open-faced tan folder stuffed with papers.
"Good, you're up." She said with a slight bow of her head in approval.
"Of course I'm up, Lady Yuri, I'm hunting. This is the most fun I've had in years, and that includes being that kinky bitch demoness's plaything. I swear she got off to poking me, more than most men…" Myne shook her head vigorously. "Focus… focus…" She told herself.
"This is what the scouts from the Pope sent." Yuri Alpha dropped them all onto the desk with an audible 'slap' noise from their weight.
Myne abandoned the board a moment later and sat down at the desk while Yuri Alpha simply stared silently down at her.
It was discomfiting. Myne still did her best, sorting through one document after another, her eyes racing over the lines like they were military reports and the war was on and victory was in her hands.
She set a document aside and stared at the second one dumbfounded. Without finishing it, she looked at the third, the fourth, the fifth, checking only the first three sections each.
"Amazing…" Myne remarked in a hushed voice and took out scrap paper and began to write while Yuri Alpha inched a little closer.
"What?" Yuri asked, bending over the desk and staring down into the back of Myne's bald head like the killer's identity was written there.
"Is there something I can do for you, Lady Yuri…?" Myne asked when she could no longer tolerate the constant empty stare.
"Find the children, that is all." Yuri said mechanically.
"You staring at me, won't help that. In fact it seems to have the opposite effect, it is very distracting. If you want to know something, ask, My Lady." Myne remarked with true annoyance when she stared open mouthed at the documents in her hand, unwilling to credit them a reality.
"Did you really set people on fire?" Yuri asked. "I can't picture you doing that, as hard as you are working now."
"Yes, I did. Elves, but… I never cared that they were people or not, like my sister, all I cared about is the havoc I could wreak. My sister is a killer, I'm a killer. We just enjoy different parts of it, and I like a little receiving… or a lot, if the giver is pretty." Myne gave a sadistic giggle, "She was always the impulsive one, rushing in to get what she wanted, no patience, frankly it was no wonder to me when she ran off, or when she disappeared, or died. I'm smarter than she was." Myne rubbed her shaved head slowly, "Though not as much so as I thought." She managed a brutal laugh at herself and flipped to the next page.
"This is utterly amazing." She muttered, again expressing her awe.
"What?" Yuri Alpha asked with idle curiosity.
"The information is all organized in a standard layout, all the who, the what, the where, everything, it makes it so… just so easy to cross reference things, it's all in the exact same order! I can work with this!" Myne shot to her feet excitedly and rushed to the board with scraps of paper and a quill that dripped drops of ink to the previously unstained, perfect floor.
She rushed back and forth like a ping pong ball between two master players, going from the desk where the papers were and laying them out, scribbling out a note, and returning to the board.
She whirled to Yuri Alpha with a shining cruel smile on her face like a sun that longed to burn the ground it looked down on. "We've got something!"
"What?" Yuri Alpha pursed her lips with doubt and Myne slapped her hand on the board.
"Magic. All the children killed had tested positive for magical talents! These aren't random killings!" Myne exclaimed and slapped a blank paper on the board and pinned it swiftly. She scrawled 'Zuranon' on the far left, then a small arrow, and wrote 'kidnapping children with magic'.
"This doesn't give us everything, but…" She grinned excitedly and drew another note and wrote in her sister's revelation, "all the reports of magic testing go to the central management center for the western region, and that means…" She dropped her hand and pointed her quill at Yuri Alpha.
"That somebody inside the orphanage administration is passing information to Zuranon. Somebody mobile, who wouldn't be noticed traveling around and talking to lots of strangers, who could get close to children without drawing any notice…" Yuri Alpha stared at Myne, who stared back in turn.
"I think we need to talk to that merchant again, don't you?" Myne asked with a pleasant smile that was 'anything' other than truly pleasant.
"I do." Yuri said with a twitch in her left eye and tightly closed lips thereafter.
Clementine grumbled as she left the building, 'Boring, so boring, so boring and annoying, ugh…' She stamped her feet on the stone steps as she descended them to the city streets, droning on and on about the various public and private events of the orphanages. She was halfway down the block when her mood turned around.
'Sister, we need you to snatch somebody, or possibly somebodies. You haven't lost your touch since Momon flatbacked you for years, did you?' Myne asked with a mocking tone even in Clementine's mind.
'First of all, there was no penetration, it was just a hug… the worst hug I've ever had, from what little I can remember. Second of all, of course not, tell me who, bitch, and I'll take them.' Clementine remarked with a slowly curling smile on her face.
'That will be for you to determine. Find out who has access to all the magic testing records on brats, and take all of those. It doesn't matter how, just get them… alive, bloodslut.' Myne ordered with a cold, dead voice.
'Yeah, yeah, I got it. I always get the job done, you know that.' Clementine answered while she returned to the administrative center.
'That's why I'm saying it the way I do, you like things messy and painful and I'm warning you sister, if you screw this up, getting the world's worst hug will be the least of your concerns.' Myne's voice had a note of warning that Clementine did not answer.
Instead, she thought about it, and chose to listen. 'Whatever she is, she's not stupid, no killing, no blood… but no failure either. Not the fun way, not the easy way… boring, very boring. Maybe after all this is over, assuming they let me get the hell out of here, I should head east, well away from all this. Some place I can have some fun.' The tentative amusement close at hand sustained her all the way inside when she walked to the counter.
"Back again I see…" The annoyed, prune faced older woman said with clear disapproval.
Clementine took out her stiletto and slammed it into the wood with a single violent motion.
She glared through vicious eyes at the woman who jumped at the sudden slam, eyes aplenty snapped toward her, only to discreetly turn away a moment later when they saw Clementine's expression. "You have a conference room, right?" She hissed.
"Y-Yes, we do…" The old woman began to noticeably sweat.
"Good, then get everybody with access to child magic testing results, into that room… now." Clementine hissed.
"But… but… but…" The woman stammered, her hands wrung together and she felt the less than discreet staring of her colleagues at her back.
Clementine wrenched her stiletto free of the wood hard enough to tear a part of it away. It fell to the floor where it broke after a sharp slam, and seemed to kill the remaining resistance in the old sweaty lady. "Right… right." The old lady whirled and scurried away while Clementine followed until the woman discreetly pointed to a door. She leaned up against the wall and let the door conceal her, propping her foot flat up against the wall and her arms crossed in front of her chest.
She listened patiently as the scared old woman fetched Clementine her prey, and as the steps came through one by one, the blonde former scripture felt only ever greater excitement beginning to take over.
She counted the seconds down, until the old woman came part of the way in, grabbed the handle, and stepped backwards out of the room to close it, revealing Clementine… and her stilettos, in all their collective serenity, beauty, and savagery.