A/N: Okay so I have no sense of schedule lol but here's an update! *jazz hands*
To Sousie: She isn't that lucky but the fact that she happened to run into the Finder that has a tendency to freak out when he sees children definitely played to her advantage. CX Thank you for reading!
To Axzi/AFC: I'm glad that you're liking the Finders cx No angsty girl yet, but she'll be back in a chapter or two. Thank you for reading!
To Pendora59: I had to plug your review into google translate lol but yeah don't worry, our small main character will be back soon. I'm glad that you enjoyed the last chapter regardless. Thank you for reading! C:
To HoboHeartLover: Erm, Mum and Papa? I don't quite understand?
To That One Secretary: Okay so, I'm a big fan of your fic so can I say that having you read my fic is like amazing!? I'm so shook rn, and I'm glad that you're enjoying the story so far! I hope I don't disappoint.
I hope you all enjoy the chapter!
Information gathering was, at times, the easiest part of being a Finder. It simple enough to eavesdrop on locals going about their businesses; especially when they spoke amongst each other about things they wouldn't dare share with outsiders in the middle of marketplaces. In the Black Order, during training, they were taught how to blend into the background of crowded places like this, despite how conspicuous they were in their white coats.
In towns like these, there was always someone willing to waggle their tongue about the shady rumors that nobody liked to acknowledge. It usually took time, money, and luck to find those individuals. Stumbling onto Oscar Moreno and the goldmine of information that he had- about the missing people and the events that connected the small town of Ayamonte to the vanishing of people all over the Huelva province- was akin to a miracle.
Liam didn't believe in miracles anymore.
This whole situation had him on edge. There was something about this information that set warning bells off in his head. He hadn't survived these four years as a Finder without gaining the sense of when things were far too easy to be anything more than a trap, or when there was something much more ominous going on underneath the veneer of normalcy that was presented.
After casting nervous eyes to the streets around them, the old man, introduced as Oscar Moreno had begged them to move their conversation indoors. They had sat in silence while he had pulled out page after page of evidence he had to support his claims. Then, he had taken a deep breath, pressed his lips together into a firm line, and began to speak.
"Hey, Liam, what were the mission parameters again? Was anything like this mentioned?" Ethan asked quietly an hour later, nudging him with his boot and flicking his eyes to the kitchen doorway. It had been quite some time since the old man had invited them in, so Oscar had gone into his kitchen to make them all something to eat and drink.
It was just the two Finders sitting in the living room until he returned.
In front of them both, scattered on the squat coffee table, were dozens of snapshots of people and news clippings about the unexplained events that had been occurring in the town for years now. In the center, atop of piles of papers, sat news clippings of the woman Oscar had told them had started the disappearances to begin with. There was no picture to go along with the morbid articles but even without them, Liam felt sick as he pieced together what must have occurred in this quiet fishing town.
"No," He said softly, brushing the tips of his fingers across the headline.
Madre Desaparece; Hija Encontrada en Condiciones Espantosas.
(Mother Disappears; Daughter Found in Horrifying Conditions.)
"No," He repeated, looking away from the mess of papers and up to his partner with somber eyes. "This is the first time I'm hearing any of this. I don't think the Order has any idea of what's going on here."
"Well, we have to tell them don't we?" Ethan stated, running his fingers through his hair in agitation. He got up to pace back and forth. "How do we even report something like this?"
"There are procedures in place for situations like this," Liam said, "I think that it's best if we gather as much information as possible before we inform the Order about this. It will help when we make the report to Headquarters."
Ethan whirled to face Liam, his eyes flashing with disbelief. "What do you mean we should wait!? The longer we wait, the more people will die!"
"Don't you think I know that!?" Liam closed his eyes and took a deep breath to calm the surge of anger that rose up at Ethan's words. When he spoke, his words were even and steady. "I told you there are procedures in place for this and that includes showing proof of the claims that we're making. The Order won't waste the few Exorcists it has just to follow up on the suspicions of two Finders. The more information we have to back up what we're saying then the sooner an Exorcist will be dispatched to our location."
They needed to make sure that they had the date of the Akuma's origins narrowed down. A timeline would help to make note of which of the missing people Oscar had listed down were actually victims of the Akuma and had not simply left town without being noticed.
Ethan puffed up in indignation, his fists curling at his sides before loosening. He visibly wilted. "Yeah, I guess that makes sense."
"Hey, look at me." Liam said, meeting the younger Finder's eyes firmly, "We'll help these people."
The reason Liam had become a Finder in the first place was to help as many people as he could; to help them against the monsters they didn't even know existed. He had dedicated what would remain of his life to this cause. He had known that day he had accepted this white coat that he wouldn't allow anything to shake him from this path, even if it was this path, this cause, that led to his death. It would go against every vow he had taken, every promise he had made to the graves of the Finders he had once called his friends, to turn his back on a village full of people unaware they needed aid to begin with.
Ethan sighed and let himself glumly sink back into the chair he had sprung up from. He twined his fingers together and rested his forehead against his hands quietly. When he spoke, it was as the sound of Oscar's heavy footsteps approached from just beyond the kitchen doorway.
"Do you promise?" He asked, no hint of his usual humor in his voice. Liam was starkly reminded, as he looked at the tired slump to Ethan's shoulders and the flat line of his lips, of how young Ethan really was. "Do you promise that we'll help these people in the end?"
There was a sense of foreboding that stirred right in his gut at the words.
"I promise," Liam said and wondered if it was a promise he would be able to keep.
Even with the knowledge that there were Akuma hiding out in the town, Ayamonte was stunning in its vibrancy. It buzzed with the sounds of voices in the marketplace and the soft rustling of the trees dotting the town. The air smelled faintly of the flowers surrounding the church and of the seaside tang that towns bordering the ocean tended to have. There was a stench of fish and brine that grew stronger as one walked closer to the vendors near the edge of the market, and fishermen peddled off the freshly caught fish before the sun could rise to its fullest and spoil their wares.
In the light of the morning sun, the mood of the crowd was brighter than it had been the previous day, a fact that wasn't uncommon in towns Finders often found themselves investigating. Human felt the safest in the glow of the light, a remnant of the instinct that haunted every human being- the fear of the unknown that came with the coming of the dark.
Liam stirred sugar into his coffee with a spoon and brought it to his lips. He let his eyes flutter shut as caffeine washed over his taste buds and felt the muscles of his shoulders relax. He was out of uniform at the moment, so no one spared him a second glance as they passed by the outdoor tables of the cafe. Ethan had gone to drop off their dirtied clothing at the workers of the local lavoir so that the clothes could be washed before the day was through, so Liam had been left to his own devices in the town's marketplace.
His gaze flitted from the people roaming the marketplace just beyond the small cafe he had settled down at. A lot of faces were familiar. He had seen them in the daily masses that were held in the church. Many of them greeted the stall owners with warm familiarity. It was clear that these people had known each other for a while, if not years, and had no reason to distrust each other. It would make rooting out the Akuma both more difficult and much simpler.
People weren't quick to tell strangers about the people close to them. But they were valuable resources that shouldn't be overlooked by any Finder seeking further information on the townspeople and the events occurring within a town. Once someone started talking, it paved the way for others to step forward as well- and made it easier to communicate with other members of the same community.
Liam finished his coffee and sighed as he turned his eyes skyward. Watching the people bustling through the marketplace instilled a bittersweet aching inside him.
The weight of nostalgia pressed down on his heart.
He hadn't been home in years. He had left without a backward glance- a hot-blooded teenager determined to give his life for a cause no one knew about- and had yet to regret his actions. But it was in moments like this- breathing in ocean kissed air in a town he could almost imagine was his own, with the lingering taste of Spanish roasted coffee on his taste buds and the hum of his native language buzzing around him- that he felt the closest thing to regret and homesickness that he would ever allow himself to feel.
The chair screeched across the stone underfoot as he stood up.
He reached into a pocket and placed a generous tip beneath the empty mug of coffee.
Then, he left the cafe.
He let his feet carry him where they pleased, keeping his ears open for any conversation that might come in handy later. He idly toyed with the money in his pocket, slowly moving from stall to stall with curiosity and interest.
He was running his fingers along the smooth lines of a carving he had pictured up, marveling at the tiny features skillfully cut into the wooden bear. It was a tiny work of art and he voiced it to the man running the stall, who beamed at the praise and continued in whittling at another piece of wood.
Occasionally his eyes would flit to the towering spire of the church and the thought would cross his mind, morbid as it was, of how many graves there might have been to people who had been dragged back to life to do the Millennium Earl's bidding. Of how many graves were empty in the town of Ayamonte.
He had once stumbled across a town where there were only twelve living people, the others turned to dust or had become the fleshy hosts of the demons themselves. That had been a difficult mission. It was always painful to see the grief-stricken faces of the ones left behind, the survivors, and to always see a hint of who he had been in them.
As the day sluggishly moved past, Liam's pocket grew lighter and his arm became laden with the bags or paper wrappings of the places touched by his patronage. He wondered if Ethan would like the present he had gotten him and smiled at the imagined reaction of his partner.
"Has visto Inez recientemente?" ("Have you seen Inez lately?") Liam heard a man ask a nearby stall owner, a woman with her gray hair pinned in a bun and a table of flasks and powders before her, "No se mira muy bien." ("She doesn't look so good.")
Liam paused, his eyes locked on the polished beads of a rosary.
Inez? That was a familiar name. It was the one that Oscar had told them about, the woman who had recently discovered her son was missing. He hadn't gone into much detail about the circumstances surrounding the son's disappearance, just mentioned the fact that the rumors of the Rio Tinto mines had only arrived at Ayamonte when the news of Inez's son emerged.
She was one of his prime suspects of harboring the Akuma in her body.
"No," ("No,") the woman sighed, "No la he visto desde el cumpleaño de Rénee." ("I haven't seen her since Rénee's birthday.")
Liam glanced at the conversing pair out of the corner of his eye, nonchalantly stepping up to the stall besides the older woman's. He had seen this woman before today- in the church that first day of their arrival. She was the old woman that had been with the little girl, the one that had send Ethan into near hysterics with a single glance.
Her stall consisted mostly of glass flasks containing a variety of powders and thick bundles of herbs tied with twine. She arranged the items into a neater line absentmindedly, smoothing out the purple fabric that covered the table holding her wares.
"Fui a ver cómo estaba el otro dia pero no me queria abrir la puerta, eso no normal!" ("I went to see how she was doing the other day but she didn't want to open the door, that's not normal!") The man exclaimed, "He sido amigo de su familia desde que antes que naciera su hijo. Inez puede hablar conmigo sobre cualquier cosa." ("I've been a friend of her family since before her son was born. Inez can talk to me about anything.")
The woman scowled and swatted at the man. "No es tan simple, idiota! Perder un hijo es algo que nunca para de doler. No puedes esperar que Inez se mejore en tan poco tiempo." (It's not that simple, idiot! Losing a child is something that never stops hurting. You can't expect Inez to get better after such a short time.")
The man looked ashamed and bowed his head, he rubbed at the spot on his head that had been smacked. His voice was soft when he spoke again. "Disculpa Maria Elena, sé que usted entiende lo que está pasando Inez más que yo podría hacer. Solamente no quiero que Inez alga algo que arrepienta haber hecho." ("I'm sorry Maria Elena, I know you understand what Inez is going through more than I could ever. I just don't want Inez to do something that she'll regret doing.")
The owner of the stall he was loitering at gave him a concerned look at the way that the rosary he was fiddling with slipped out of his hands. The beads clattered loudly onto the wooden table. Maria Elena?
The woman named Maria Elena froze, her hands falling still over the flasks she had been arranging. Her eyes filled with grief, a heavy agonized thing. "Si," ("Yes,") she whispered, "Entiendo como se siente." ("I understand how she feels.")
Liam collected himself with a shake of his head and forced a smile. He murmured to the owner of the stall that he wished to purchase the rosary he had dropped and handed him the money, keeping his attention on the conversation going on in the stall besides him. He accepted the item with a soft 'thank you' and walked- as naturally as he could- closer to Maria Elena's stall.
"Como has estado?" ("How have you been?") the man asked softly, "Ya han sido tres años." ("It's already been three years.")
Maria Elena's eyes flicked to the back of the stall, where there, curled up on a cushioned rocking chair, was the little girl from that first day. She was clearly asleep. A freckled cheek was squished against the top of her arms and from what Liam could see peeking out from under the fabric of the yellow dress she wore, her legs were tucked beneath her.
"La extraño," ("I miss her,") she whispered in a voice so faint that Liam strained to hear the words over the sounds of conversation in the market around them, "La extraño mas todos los días." ("I miss her more every day.")
Liam was keenly aware that he was intruding on something private.
He knew who Maria Elena was from that news article that had stuck in his mind- he'd be a fool to overlook such a suspicious disappearance from such a well known member of the community and taking note of the names listed on the article was child's play- but while as a Finder he had dealt with a lot of grief from the people he interviewed, it wasn't something that he could ever grow used to.
In the distance, the church bell tolled the passing of the time.
"Gracias," he murmured, taking the rosary wrapped in parcel paper that was handed to him. This stroll hadn't been entirely fruitless. He had more information to look up at now. He was eager to leave behind the distraught stall owner besides him and to head back to the church.
He only glanced back more time at Maria Elena's stall before he walked away.
The room was silent save for the sound of his own breathing. The church was quiet at this hour, all attendees gone home despite the open-door policy that welcomed any visitants at any hour of the day and night. The sun hadn't even fully set yet, such was the way of small towns.
Liam was alone in the borrowed bedroom, freshly showered and eyeing the bulky communicator with distaste. Ethan had gone out with promises of keeping an eye out for anything odd and had set out to find something for them to eat for dinner.
That left Liam to contact Headquarters about the new developments in their mission on his own. He wished that he wasn't the one doing this but Ethan didn't have as much experience as he did and this information was vital enough that he wanted to avoid any possible mistakes in reporting it.
He typed in the number into the communicator with fingers that had the slightest tremble to them. He felt jittery, on edge until he was able to send the information to the Order. He listed to the steady beeping that signaled the call was being sent through. The moment the beeping stopped, a sign that the call had been answered or possibly dropped, he spoke into the mouthpiece. "Finder Liam Montenegro calling Headquarters, do you read me?"
A pause, in which Liam held his breath and tightened his fingers around the communicator. His heart was pounding in his ears. Then, after a soft crackle of static:
"Headquarters to Finder Montenegro, we read you." He let out a breath of relief.
He sat down on his bed heavily, dragging a hand down his face. "Thank god."
There was a part of him that feared that the call wouldn't connect. It wouldn't be the first time that the communicators were unable to reach the Order- despite being the newest version of the machine created by the Science Division. There were still plenty of kinks to work out in every new model of communicators.
"What's your status, Finder?"
Liam answered automatically, having protocol drilled into him to the point in which he could report while half conscious. "Primary mission is still ongoing. Target has yet to make contact with us. Delivery still uncompleted."
"That's to be expected. Stay put and wait for further instructions. What in regards to your secondary mission? Anything to report?"
"Yes," Liam said. "The investigation of the rumors about the Rio Tinto mines have proven conclusive. I believe that there are Akuma present possibly investigating the same rumors of Rio Tinto's mines as ourselves. There is a possibility Innocence is present in the location but this has yet to be confirmed. I suggest the use of Exorcists for this confirmation."
"Noted," The voice murmured, the scritch of pen on paper audible over the call. They were probably jolting down a request for Exorcists to be sent to the location. Although, who knew which branch would approve the request in the end.
After the sound of their pen had stopped, the voice over the communicator cleared their throat. They added after a pause, "Finder, your report wasn't due for another two days. You are aware of this fact, correct?"
"Yes, I am aware." Liam licked his lips, suddenly overwhelmingly nervous. His mouth was dry. "I have something to report to the Information Department. It's about the town we're posted at."
There was the soft sound of papers being shuffled. He could make out the hum of machinery and other voices speaking in the background. "Ayamonte, Spain was it? What do you have to report?"
"I think," Liam began, flicking his eyes across the room anxiously, "I think that there might be a lack of information about this town that upon further review indicates something else besides what has been reported in the past."
"What does this 'something' entail?"
"I have reason to believe there are Akuma present in Ayamonte."
There was a sharp inhale of breath. There was more shuffling of paper, quicker now than before. A chair scraped the floor loudly as the owner of the voice shot up from their station.
Breathlessly, "Hold on a moment, Finder Montenegro."
Then, there was the sound of footsteps almost running away.
Situations like this weren't common, not in towns with no reports of missing people. Liam had worked his way up to a Finder from the same Signal Department he was calling. He knew that the protocol for things like this happening wasn't widely known by every person working the receivers. The person attending him had most likely gone to discuss the new development this standard mission with a superior officer that had a clue of what to do next.
When Liam was addressed again, it was a different voice that spoke this time.
"Finder Montenegro, are you sure about this? Those are serious allegations to make. No reports of Akuma have been made about Ayamonte in the past."
Liam thought back to Oscar's terrified eyes from earlier, how wide and haunted they appeared as he told his tale. He thought about the ducked heads, the skittish whispers in the marketplace. He thought of the people going missing in this very town- travelers, vagrants, people fleeing from the Rio Tinto mines- that were talked about under breath but were never reported. Images of the news articles flashed in his mind. The name 'Teresa Castillo' flashed in his mind.
"Yes." He said at last, firmly and unwavering. "Yes, I'm sure."
"Very well," the new voice said softly, "Keep your head down and make sure the Akuma don't suspect you're doing anything more than simply passing by. We shall contact you when your primary mission target has entered Spain. Until then, stay put and gather more information about the situation at hand."
"Understood," Liam murmured, his heart caught in his throat.
"Oh? And Finder Montenegro?"
Liam paused from where he was pulling the receiver away from his ear. "Yes?"
"Be careful." The call disconnected.
Liam stared at the device in his hand for a few seconds before he reached out and set it back onto its cradle with a click. He dropped his head into his hands and tried to remember how to breathe. They were stuck here until further notice.
They just had to hold on until then.
They left Ayamonte a week after arriving.
The orders had finally come in to meet their assigned Exorcist a few towns over, in the nearby town of Trigueros, after he returned from clearing the Rio Tinto mines of the Akuma there. The parcel they had cared for in the meantime was nestled carefully in Liam's satchel, awaiting the last leg of the mission it had taken them this long to complete.
Liam had assured him that the report had been made to Headquarters. The Exorcist from the African Branch they were to deliver the newest golem prototype to would follow them back to Ayamonte in order to destroy the Akuma that they were sure inhabited the town. It was the most they could ask for with all the information they had gathered about the unreported missing people of this town.
They left in the early morning before the sun had even reached its peak in the sky. The town around them was already bustling with activity. They had already given their thanks to Father Antonio and were on the way out of the church.
"Well, this has been a stressful mini-vacation," Ethan commented, lips quirking up despite the worry he still felt at leaving Ayamonte before the Akuma was destroyed. He raised his arms over his head in a stretch and heard his back crack. "I think all that time we spent hunched over Oscar's table made my bones as creaky as yours."
"Oh shut it, you. I'm not that old."
Ethan stuck his tongue out at Liam. "Yeah, yeah, so you say." His bag bounced against his hip and Ethan paused in his teasing for a moment. "Do you think the other guys will be jealous of all the souvenirs we ended up buying? They might think we actually were on vacation all this time."
"They'll be more jealous of the fact that you got to spend so much time with me to care about the things you bought yourself." Liam drawled dryly. "I'm in high demand, don't you know?"
Ethan scoffed. "Why would anyone willingly request someone so elderly?"
He got a swat on the back of his head for that comment and a lecture on how 'I'm not that old- stop laughing damn it!' Ethan danced out of reach of Liam's hands with a laugh, rubbing the back of his stinging head with one hand.
"You know for such an old man you hit pretty hard," He said with a grin and turned to look at the church one last time before they left it behind. He knew that they would be back as soon as they picked up their Exorcist but he still drank in the sight of the white building and the surrounding foliage before he left it behind.
The scent of the ocean hung in the air, mingling with the perfume of the garden just along the side of the church and blowing in the air as a breeze passed along.
The smile died on his face.
A long blue ribbon trailed from what had to be a child's dress out of the shrubbery near the church doors. Ethan followed it with his eyes, terror budding in his chest. He held his breath as he looked at the shadows between the clusters of branches with his pulse beating erratically.
Only darkness looked back at him.
There in the shadows, it felt like Death was gazing out of the bushes at him- Death wearing the face of a child. It was always children, it was always them that nobody ever expected to hide monsters under their skins.
He hadn't expected it either.
Once it had been him that had been lead astray by the belief that children were so inherently innocent that they would never dare do something as unnatural as call someone back from the dead. The memory of it still haunted him. It still made his skin crawl. There was nothing that could make the fear abate no matter how hard he tried to claw it out of himself and sometimes he still woke up from nightmares of that night with his screams caught in his chest.
"Everything alright?"
It took everything in his power to not jump at the sound of his partner's voice.
Ethan cleared his throat and wrapped his trembling fingers around the straps of his communicator. "Yeah," he lied, trying to keep his terror contained, "I'm just worried about leaving the place like this. We still haven't figured out where the Akuma might be hiding."
Liam's eyes softened and Ethan felt disgusted with himself at the sight.
"We'll be back with help," Liam said, trying to reassure him. "We'll make sure no more people get hurt. We just have to do this one thing first."
"Yeah, I know." Ethan murmured. They still had a mission to complete.
They left towards the train station with only a few more words and Ethan had to pretend he couldn't feel the eyes boring into his back as they walked away.
(Later, when they returned to the town with the Exorcist in tow; when the number of people missing had only grown larger in their absence; and the monsters finally showed their faces, he would meet the owner of those eyes- the one that had watched him from the darkness, the eyes belonging to the child with the face of the dead- and think that maybe Akuma weren't the only kinds of monsters out that existed in this world.
Even years after the tragedy of Ayamonte faded into obscurity at last, Ethan Hale could never forget the way those dark eyes felt like death as they rested on his skin, or how the child of the Akuma felt just as much as an abomination as the ones her parents had become.)
A/N: Don't forget to tell me what you think! I'm sorry for the delay in Renee's reappearance but she'll be back in a chapter or two so don't you all worry too much about her.