As always, all SoTD characters to the great and powerful Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg, who were busy last week accepting the Saturn Award for Best Horror Film. Woot!
Julian ascended the stairs, reminding himself to get an icepack for his throbbing jaw, and caught up with Detective Ashford who was still supervising things in Room 23. She dismissed one of the officers and greeted him with a casual smile. Not too casual.
"Ah, hello again, Mr. West. I do apologize, and I promise I will follow up on those bodies in the chapel. But as you can see, this matter takes precedence."
"No, it's fine. I completely understand."
She folded her arms and peered at him inquisitively. "I don't suppose you managed to secure a signed confession from one of the inn's ghosts, did you?"
Julian issued a peevish smirk. "Not as such."
"Ah, well then I think I'll restrict my inquiries to the flesh and blood. If you'll excuse me, I need to have a talk with Shaun Riley."
"He has an alibi," Julian blurted.
"I'm sorry?"
He sighed, not quite believing he was going to say what he was about to say. He really shouldn't – it wasn't in the best interest of the rest of his face if Sara found out - but he felt compelled to do so. He could do her the courtesy of leaving certain details out, though. "Mr. Riley used to do some work for the Council. He was kind enough to consult with my colleague, Helen, last night on our investigation."
"I see." Ashford raised an eyebrow. "So he was 'consulting' until the time that he showed up here around 10?"
"I assume so."
Ashford still regarded him with wary uncertainty.
"Look," Julian continued, "they were probably up working until the wee hours and he didn't want to risk waking his girlfriend, which is why he didn't return to the room until later this morning."
The detective solemnly nodded. "The relationship between Mr. Riley and Miss Wellesley—is it purely professional?"
"Of course," he stated, flatly. "I'm sure you can understand that I can't tell you much about how the Council operates, but I can assure you that our operatives are strongly discouraged from forming attachments to other operatives. Neither Helen nor Shaun would knowingly violate that code."
"I see. Well, I certainly hope you're right," she said, and started off down the hallway. Descending the staircase, she encountered Sara, who was looking decidedly depressed but determined. "Ah, Miss Wellesley. Nice to see you again. I'm sure we both wish it were under better circumstances."
"That's an understatement," she sighed.
"May I ask you a quick question?"
Sara bit her lip and leaned impatiently on the banister. "Sure."
"Your colleague tells me that you were with Shaun Riley all night. Is that true?"
"Yes," she replied hesitantly, physically quite calm, but mentally trying to process all the permutations of what her handler might have told the detective. She doubted Julian would be in the mood to do her any favors right now. Yet he did seem to favor his health…
"Julian told me that Shaun Riley was helping you with research on your current investigation?"
"Yes. Shaun used to work for the Council. He's been…very helpful in the past."
"Did he seem at all upset? Anxious?"
"No."
"There were no problems between him and his girlfriend? No arguments or tension?"
"I wouldn't know," Sara lied. "We just worked together. Briefly. We're not that close."
At least, not right this second, Sara thought to herself. She tried to stifle any thought of exactly how close they got last night…
"So Riley was helping you with research from the time he left his girlfriend last night to the time he returned to his room this morning?"
"Yep. I met up with him around 9 last night and he left my room around 10."
"And you're willing to sign a statement to that effect?"
"Of course." Why not? I won't be signing my real name, anyway, honey.
"Good, thanks." Ashford offered her a weak smile and continued down the stairs. Sara shook her head and continued on as the detective met up with Sergeant Murphy in the foyer.
"Who's the chippie?" he asked of the black-haired woman ascending on the staircase. "Does she need to be…interrogated?"
"Don't get your hopes up, Murphy. She's neither a witness nor a suspect. Although she has conveniently provided an alibi for our Mr. Riley."
"Let me guess: they were 'studying' all night?"
"Something like that. Let's go talk to Shaun, shall we?"
"Lead on, Macduff," he remarked, making a gentlemanly gesture toward the dining room.
Sara watched the detectives disappear through the doorway, and then continued speedily to the second floor. As she rounded the corner, she saw Julian leaning against the wall, calmly observing the action in Room 23.
"Nice of you to join me," he said.
"I didn't have anything better to do," she remarked. "Thank you, by the way."
"For what?"
"I ran into Ashford on the stairs. She told me that you had given Shaun an alibi. Y'know, an alibi without the incriminating details. I'd rather not have Ash treating him like a suspect. You didn't have to do that, so…I appreciate it."
Julian shrugged it off, a little too coolly for her taste. "She's just doing her job. Unlike others I could mention."
"Oh, now who's being a smart-arse?"
"You do realize I should be reporting you to Simmonds right now?"
"As if Michael would ever believe I could be insubordinate," she said. "Besides, you really want to tell him I decked you? After he entrusted you to keep me in line? Might as well resign now…"
"Sara, I can't believe you're not taking this seriously. You don't seem to grasp the concept that you are a slayer. A highly-trained, well-financed instrument of the Church, sworn to seek out its enemies and destroy them. There's nothing in the handbook about shacking up with salesclerks."
"Ah, but there's nothing expressly forbidding it either," she observed. "And you haven't seen Shaun in action..."
"Too much information, thanks."
"I don't mean that, Jules. Jesus. I mean in the field, you haven't seen him put up a fight. Trust me, he's no school boy." Sara allowed herself a moment to imagine Shaun in too-tight school boy shorts – she thought she deserved it, dammit – and moved on.
"Look," she continued in an apologetic tone, "I get that you're upset with me, and I'm sorry, okay? I acted rashly and unprofessionally. It won't happen again."
Julian crossed his arms and remained silent.
"Oh, enough with the 'I'm so disappointed in you' look," she groaned. "You should know by now that I don't do contrite and ashamed. I gave you an apology, take it or leave it."
"Given the circumstances, I suppose I'll take it. So let's get back to work and table this discussion for a time when we're not in any potential danger."
"Fine by me."
"We can't exactly do anything while the CID are working. Perhaps our first order of business should be our spiky blue friend."
"Sounds great, but unless you have an arsenal in one of your jacket pockets, we need a different order of business."
"Trust me, while you were in flagrante delicto last night, I did my research; I know its weakness. Now where's this secret passage to the chapel?"
"Follow me," she invited, leading the way down the stairs.
Meanwhile, Detectives Ashford and Murphy slowly approached Shaun as he sat at one of the patio tables, staring blankly toward the landscape.
"Mr. Riley?" Ashford attempted.
He awoke slowly from his distant gaze and turned to face them. "Yes?"
"I realize this isn't the best of times, but we'd like to ask you a few questions. Just to account for your movements over the past few hours."
"Sure."
"I just spoke with Julian West and Helen Wellesley. They both tell me that you were helping them with a case last night."
Momentarily he peered at the detective blankly, then the pieces fell into place. Nice cover, cheers guys. "Uh… yeah, I met up with Helen after dinner. And I was working with her until this morning."
"Is there a particular reason you didn't return to your room last night?"
"I'm sorry?"
"A young couple on a romantic mini-break, your last night on holiday with your girlfriend before you have to check out and go back to the big city. And yet you choose to spend it researching?"
"I was helping out an old friend in need, detective," he explained.
"So things were okay between you and Emma? No tension, no disagreements?"
"I'm not sure where you're going…"
"Mr. Moran in the room next door told us that he heard shouting coming from your room after he and his wife returned from dinner last night."
Shaun recalled seeing the wedding party that was sharing the hotel with them. How every time he'd seen them, they were having a very good time and not being at all shy about it. "Wait, you're taking the word of a mad, drunken Irishman?" he protested.
"So you and Emma were not fighting?"
"Perhaps the TV was on very loud," Murphy offered. "Maybe that's what they heard."
"No, no… listen. Emma and I did have a fight," Shaun admitted. "She wasn't happy with the way our relationship was going. We came up here to spend some time together, I thought it might be good for us. But she told me that she wanted a commitment; she wanted to move in together."
"You weren't ready for that?"
"I don't know. I just…I wanted to take things slowly."
"Did you love her?"
"What! Yes," he replied. "Maybe. I mean, I loved her, but I wasn't in love with her. That always sounds really cheesy in the movies, Christ it sounds cheesy now." He scratched his head and winced. "But that's the only way I can describe it."
"Do you miss her?"
"Of course. Look, I wasn't ready to marry Emma, alright? But I cared about her, I didn't want anything bad to happen to her either. Not like this..." Shaun's voice quivered and the tears began to well again. Detective Ashford seemed not to notice.
"I see. Did you discuss any of this with Helen?"
"No. Why would I?"
"You two are co-workers. Perhaps friends. Perhaps more than that."
Right, sod this, Shaun thought. "Please, detective, I've had a pretty shitty morning and I'd love it if you could be straight with me for once."
Ashford gritted her teeth. "A man doesn't spend the last night of his holiday with a co-worker to do research when he could be lying in bed with his girlfriend. Now why don't you tell us the true nature of your relationship with Miss Wellesley?"
"I think it's dead." Julian peered into the shadows of the hole in the chapel floor. The imposing figure of the Velkor demon lay still on the dusty soil beneath them. Still spiky, still nasty…but most certainly no longer a threat.
"Really?" Sara inquired, joining him at the edge of the hole and tilting her head in confusion. "I killed it? I mean, of course I killed it. Go, me!"
"Not that I'm doubting your abilities, Sara, but I don't believe you did."
"Killjoy."
"Save it. Where was that library you mentioned?"
"Through those doors behind the altar." She led the way into the library. The many shelves of books were still there, but the wall of photos and documents had disappeared. "I swear it was right here, Jules. And I do have the pictures to prove it."
"I know. Rather unsettling, isn't it?"
They used the ladder to descend into the crypt, finding it empty of everything but the lifeless demon and several resident skeletons.
"And now the bodies are gone?" Sara cried, slumping against skeletal remains and leaping to one side, shaking cobwebs and dust off her shoulder. "This is so not my day."
Julian ignored her and began to examine the body of the demon. Dark purple blood had dried and crusted around its amputated wrist, and some of its scales seemed to have broken off. He chalked the damage up to the fight the demon had earlier with Sara and Shaun.
"I'm feeling unfulfilled, Jules," Sara said, restlessly pacing in the small space. "This is very unfulfilling."
"Haven't you had quite your share of fulfillment this weekend?"
"Save it."
"Look, I know you were hoping to beat up on something, but this Velkor is definitely deceased."
"Great, that's one less vengeance demon to worry about. Although I always thought vengeance demons had a little more style, and subtlety."
"This isn't a vengeance demon. That's what I figured out last night; Evelyn opened a portal and accepted the first demon that came out of it. Unfortunately for her, it was a Velkor instead of one of D'Hoffryn's devotees."
"Classy. She should definitely be asking for her money back."
Julian began to examine the area around the demon's corpse. "What is this white substance on the floor?"
"We're in a crypt, Julian. I'm guessing it's several hundred years' worth of dust and decay." She watched in horrified disgust as he raked a finger along the ground and then put it to his mouth. "Okay, ew."
"It's sodium chloride," he pronounced.
"What?"
"NaCl. Table salt."
"Yeah, I know my periodic table, Einstein. Why would there be salt down here?"
"That's how they killed the demon. The Velkor lives by draining its victims of all bodily fluids. A large intake of salt would severely dehydrate it, and in its already impaired state, it would have been unable to recover."
"So our demon's dead, Evelyn's wall o' Wicca wonders is gone…" Sara cracked her knuckles, pondering. And still anxious to do some damage, to be honest. "Someone's covering up their tracks."
"It would seem so. But who?"
"Uh, Evelyn?"
"No, this is beyond her. I think I might have made a huge mistake in underestimating our opponent."
"Our opponent? Who's our opponent?"
"I spoke with Nicola again earlier today. She told me the whole sordid story behind our spirit in Room 34. A young bride named Margaret Winfield who was killed on her wedding night. And my guess is that Maggie's spirit was somehow feeding off the demon. But now…I'm afraid she might be flying solo."
"You think Maggie's spirit killed Emma?"
"I think it's a possibility."
"Are you quite done corrupting my crime scene?" Ashford inquired, hovering over the hole in the chapel floor.
"Shit!" Julian and Sara exclaimed in unison, then looked up at the surprising voice. "Ashford?"
"This is the body you wanted me to have a look at?"
"Not exactly," Julian replied. He and Sara scrambled up to the chapel floor to face the detective. "I'm afraid I can't really give you an explanation for what that is. At least not one that you could put in an official report."
Ashford started to look up three times, each time glancing gobsmacked at the Velkor's hulking corpse again, then finally came up for air. "Then answer one question for me: Did that thing drown a woman in a bathtub this morning?"
"No."
"Then it's not important right now."
"Detective Ashford, I don't think you're seeing the entire picture here" Julian replied insistently. "That thing has killed three women, that we know of, and it's probably closely related to Emma's death. Just give us time to figure out how it got here. A violent portal-jumper from an unknown hell dimension can't just be dismissed!"
"Violent portal-jumper, yeah that begs to be put in a report." Sara remarked, patting Julian on the shoulder.
"If you want to open up a hell dimension and look inside, you're going to do it on someone else's patch." Ashford glared at them. "I want both of you on the train back to London before this day is over. Is that clear?"
"Look, we're just trying to do our jobs," Sara protested.
"And you're getting in the way of me doing mine. Whatever your mincing little Council is after is not my problem, but I can assure you this isn't the first time I've seen or heard about something like that rotting in someone's basement."
Sara and Julian both bolted upright, wide-eyed. "Seriously?" Sara gasped.
"Small town, Miss Wellesley. People gossip. Now I can't put ghosts or demons in lock-up, but I can arrest the both of you for obstructing justice. So please stop wasting my time with this supernatural shite."
"Detective Ashford, you are making a mistake," Julian declared.
"No, my mistake was in trusting Council operatives to actually get something done. I've got four homicides, a hotel full of very anxious guests, and a village full of people worried that they might be next. What am I supposed to tell them? Can you give me something that will lessen their fears, that will make them feel safe in their own houses?"
"We're trying…"
"You did try, and you failed. This is my investigation now. Both of you are free to go. And that's an order, not a suggestion." The detective turned on her heels and left the chapel.
"So…we're not gonna' follow orders, are we?" Sara asked.
"No."
"I thought not. Where do we go from here?"
"I think it's time I paid a visit to Prunella Davies, Evelyn's coven connection."
"She's the one who helped Evie get her vengeance on?"
"Apparently. But I'm not so sure she didn't have an ulterior motive. I'll see if I can track her down; she has a shop or something in the village."
"You need some back-up?"
"Nah. She sounds like an old kook with some candles, crystals and a spice rack. I think I'll be fine. Why don't you go get some rest? You look like you could use some sleep."
"Oh, haven't you heard? 'Exhausted and hopeless' is the new look for spring," she quipped. "Anyway, I can't sleep in this hotel." At least not without someone to keep her company, she thought. Sara wondered where Shaun had gone off to and tried not to let Julian see her fret. "You'll call me if there's any problems."
"Of course."