At long last, it has arrived...
"You know what you must do... Don't you?"
The Night of Calamity.
"I do. And... I regret not doing this sooner."
"I would have thought you would know better than this... You've gone soft. Do what must be done."
"Oh, believe me... I will. Perhaps things could have been different in some other life... But not this one.
The dusk of tragedy...
"Goodbye. I'm... I'm sorry."
The dawn of a new era...
"I'll need you to come with me. Can you do that?"
In a time without bloodshed.
"You... Alright. I'll come.
The end of it all and the beginning of something new...
"At long last... You understand the truth."
At the cost of something once loved.
"Forgive me... Even though I do not deserve it."
October 23
Morix Law Offices
9:25 AM
Deirdre Brigit
This was perhaps the emptiest I had ever seen the agency. Mr. Morix had been out all day, and Chrysalis was nowhere to be found either. I was starting to think it had been some sort of family thing because Pieter was out of the equation too. I was alright with the quiet, but I was starting to get worried about just how oppressive the silence was. I may have been overreacting a bit to assume that something like this by default had to lead to something bad, but I couldn't help the creeping sense of dread that rose in my stomach at the idea that so many important figures within the agency were gone suddenly for seemingly no reason. I would have thought that they would have said something if we were supposed to know that they were going to be gone.
Sky and Felicity sat with me in the common area, though I could tell there was something else going through both of their heads. That had been the case for quite a while now though. Felicity had been worked up and anxious ever since that case surrounding the Council of Six, not that even she seemed to understand why. As for Sky, it was a much more recent development, only from the most recent case he had taken on. I suspected Lily and Pieter would know more about it given that they had been on that case's defense team with him, but as things currently stood, I was just... Lost. Pieter was still gone, and Lily wasn't in the main area, not that I would be able to push her to talk about it with Sky right there to begin with.
Victoria and Yuri were there too with Victoria reading some romance novel or another as she usually did while Yuri draped herself dramatically across the couch. She was scrolling through her phone's social media platforms, her legs resting on Victoria's lap. Victoria didn't seem to mind though, too focused on her book to notice much of anything happening around her. It was a normal enough scene, but something about it still worried me.
The door opened, and Lily came walking in before I could express my worries about the day, and I glanced up in her direction. "So... Strange day, huh?" she asked as she sat down next to Sky on the couch. Normally, he would have at least tried to react with anxiety at the sight of her, but today, that wasn't the case. He barely even seemed to notice her, and that only made Lily narrow her eyes in his direction. If that wasn't proof that she knew what was going on, then I didn't know what was.
"I thought the others would be here by now," Yuri admitted as she scrolled through something else on her phone. A small video autoplayed before she moved on, rolling her eyes. Because of the way she was laying, her other eye, the one she regularly hid, was on full display. It was completely useless and had been for years now, but Yuri still poured all of her bravado into expressing herself with that matching eyebrow. "I mean, it's a normal work day, and we all know how those three feel about being late to anything. It never happens, not when there's not something else going on."
I went tense at that. She was right, as much as I hated to admit it. We were going to have to solve this on our own if they weren't there yet to help us figure out all of this. I reached for my phone and prepared to tap out a message to Mr. Morix asking for an explanation for why this was happening. Once again, that creeping dread came in from the corners of my body, and I did my best to shrug it off. We had no proof yet that this was anything to be too worried about even though all of us knew better than to fall into that false sense of security. I had a bad feeling about this, and I just couldn't shake it no matter how hard I tried.
Before I could finish typing out the message though, the phone rang. We all glanced around to one another in curiosity with Yuri even pulling her phone away from her face to see who was going to answer it. I sighed and pushed myself to my feet before approaching the phone where it rested on the nearby counter. I picked it up and pressed it to my ear. "Morix Law Offices here, how may I help you?"
"Good," the man on the other side. Something about his voice was twisted, like he was using some kind of modifier to hide the way he really sounded. I looked down at the ground in confusion, and the others all perked up when they noticed my tense posture. "I have a request for a case."
"Of course," I said as I reached for a nearby notepad. "What are the circumstances of the case?"
"A murder took place in a building near here," the man started, his voice catching along the way. "I'm sure you've heard of the Council of Six, yes? It was in their headquarters."
My eyes went wide and I looked over to the others slowly as I started to write down what the man was telling me. This had to be massive. How in the world had we not heard about something like that? A second murder in the Council of Six headquarters within the last year was beyond terrifying, and I knew we were going to have to investigate it as soon as possible.
"I can take that silence to mean that you know what I mean," the man continued. "I believe the defendant of this crime is someone you know... And I would ask that you come here as soon as possible to hear the details of the case. I believe this is where you can find the answers you've been looking for."
I hesitated before speaking, abandoning all ideas of writing down my notes about his words. After all, this was a case we were going to have to investigate whether we wanted to or not. "Who are you?" I questioned hurriedly. "What are you talking about?"
The man was quiet for a long moment before he let out a careful breath through his nose. "I'm someone who you can consider an ally," he replied, seemingly uncaring as to just how vague that idea was. "And right now, I would ask that you tread carefully for your own sakes. Please, come here and see what you can learn about the scene of the crime."
I opened my mouth to say something else, but I was cut off when the line went dead. He had hung up on me the instant I started to go on the offensive for information, not that I should have been surprised about this. I sighed and set the phone down as I turned to the rest of the agency. They were all staring at me now, Yuri even sitting up from her dramatic draping across Victoria's lap to watch me carefully. They were waiting for an explanation, and I just wished I could provide anything they were searching for. With how vague that man had been throughout our entire conversation though, I doubted I was going to be able to give them much of anything of value.
"Are you okay, Deirdre?" Lily eventually asked when she realized that they weren't going to be hearing anything unless she started it. "What were you talking about on the phone? Who was it that called?"
"I don't know," I admitted. "It was a man who said that he was an ally, but I don't know who he could have been specifically. He was using something to modify his voice, so I couldn't really pick up on any of the specific details of how he sounded. Before I knew it, he had hung up... But only after he said that we have another case to solve."
"What case?" Sky questioned, his voice shaking and almost cracking. He covered his hand with one mouth before coughing to try and cover up how shaky he sounded, offering us a nervous smile that wasn't convincing in the slightest.
"It was a murder at the Council of Six headquarters," I replied, and Felicity went tense at the mere mention of the building. "I don't know who was killed or what the motive was, but I think we're going to have to go and check it out for ourselves. The man... He said that we were going to be able to find something we have been searching for when we got there."
Everyone looked to each other uncertainly at that before Victoria pressed her hands together over her book. "Do you think he was talking about all the people who have gone missing?" he questioned softly. "But how int he world would he know about something like that? Three people aren't here, but that's not... I don't see how that could..."
"I'm not sure either, but if one thing is sure, we have to go and see what we can find," I announced as I started toward the door. "I have no idea what that man was talking about when he was on the phone with me, but I need to go and investigate it as soon as possible. If even one thing that man said is true, then there was another murder at the Council of Six's central building, and we need to investigate it as soon as possible."
"I would have thought something like that would hit national news before anybody could count to five," Yuri admitted. "I can't believe we still haven't heard about it if it's true... The man could be lying to try and get us there for some kind of trap."
"I guess that's true, but I feel like we still have to go and see what we can find," Sky announced. He let out a hefty sigh and rose to his feet once again. "I don't know how I feel about this, but we have to be as careful as possible. If this might give us some of the information we've been looking for, then we have to try."
The room was quiet for a long time as everyone looked to one another to try and analyze their answers. In the end, we all came to a unanimous agreement in the silence, and our previous tasks were set aside in favor of a journey to the Council of Six's headquarters. Even if it was all just rumors and uncertain whispers, we had to see if this was going to solve our current problems. I had an awful feeling deep in the pit of my stomach about the mystery man that had called us, but I did my best to put it aside.
After all, what other choice did I have?
October 23
Council of Six Headquarters
9:55 AM
Deirdre Brigit
If there had been any doubts before about a murder taking place at the Council of Six headquarters, they all melted away the instant we arrived at our destination. A wide perimeter of police tape had been set up around the building, and there were perhaps more police officers around this one building than I had ever seen on any other case before. Something had definitely happened her, and it was big.
"I wonder if we're going to be able to find that mystery man around here," Yuri said as she looked up in my direction. "Do you think you'd be able to point him out if you heard his voice again?"
"He was using some kind of voice modifier, so I don't know if I would be able to pick him out of the crowd," I frowned with a shake of my head. "We'll just have to see how it ends up going, I'm afraid... Until then, I think we should look around for anyone familiar and see if we can hear a bit more information about what's happening here."
"Well, that looks like a pretty good way to get our hands on some information," Victoria said as she pointed off to our right. Detective Erikson was speaking with Detective Wattson there, and I could tell by their grim expressions that they were discussing something serious, no doubt about the crime at hand. Whatever had happened was bad, and we were end up with a twisted appreciation of the case by the time it was over, I was sure.
We approached the pair of detectives, and I tried to pick up on what they were talking about before we arrived. I couldn't quite pull out their words from the crowd around us though, so I instead reached out one hand to tap on Detective Erikson's shoulder. He whirled around immediately, and I noticed just how exhausted he was. It looked as if he hadn't slept at all last night, and if I had to guess, the murder had taken place the day before. There was no other reason I could think of that he would look so completely drained so soon after the investigation had started. The investigation wasn't as new as we'd been led to believe after all, and the scene of the crime was probably in worse condition as a result.
"I should have known you were going to show up sooner or later," Detective Erikson sighed. He rubbed at his head after he took off his hat, and I could only assume that he was fighting off a migraine brought about by his exhaustion. "You're here to help with defending the suspect, aren't you?"
"I'm afraid we don't know much of anything that's going on here," Lily said. "We received a call to come here and look around at what we could find... That's about all we know. The phone call wasn't the most descriptive, just saying that we could find something of import here."
Detective Wattson looked out over our group, doing an internal headcount. "I take it you don't know where the other members of your agency are then," she remarked, and when we all shook our heads, she crossed her arms. "They're here. They've been here for much of the night, as a matter of fact."
"I guess we should have seen that coming... Trouble always seems to find our agency, and if it wasn't with the rest of us, then it was bound to be with the others," Yuri muttered with a shake of her head. "What exactly happened here last night? We don't really know... Anything."
"Someone was killed last night, and... Well, we're having a bit of trouble figuring out the identity of the victim. She had no identifying information on her person, and it seems like any potential samples we could have used to figure out her identity have been stripped away from us. It's like the evidence was erased from the police's files, and that's making our job much harder than it should be," Detective Erikson told us.
We all shared a nervous look at that, and Detective Wattson took that as her cue to continue. "We're trying to figure out what's going on, but that's much easier said than done. Apparently, there was some sort of meeting set to happen here late last night, but I think there's much more to it than that," she began. "Beyond that, we're also contending with... Well... Something else happened here last night, and it's certainly complicating the murder investigation in ways we never would have expected when the call first came in."
Before any of us could ask what they had been dealing with aside from the murder, Prosecutor Lin appeared. She was walking through the crowd purposefully and quickly, and I stared at her in shock. I had suspected that perhaps the entirety of Mr. Morix's family would be here as part of the investigation at hand, but the look on her face told me that it ran much deeper than that. I couldn't quite understand why, but I had an awful feeling about it.
She barely even acknowledged any of us-something unheard of for a woman as kind as Prosecutor Lin-and instead turned her attention to the detectives. "Have you heard of anything else?" she asked intensely.
Detective Wattson shook her head. "I'm afraid not... We've been searching for as much as we can, but all our attempts to learn more have come up short," she said, her expression shifting to something that reminded me a lot of grief... But why? What was happening?
"I... I understand," Prosecutor Lin murmured. She nodded to herself, and I could tell she was trying her best to hold back her tears. She wasn't anywhere near succeeding in that endeavor though, and she let out a strangled sigh before shaking her head. "I... Thank you for all that you've done for me so far. I'm going to go back inside."
"H-Hold on," Sky cut in, reaching one hand out in her direction. "What's going on?"
Prosecutor Lin finally seemed to realize that we were there, and her eyes went wide as she looked over our entire group. "O-Oh, I... I'm sorry. I didn't realize you were here. I'm sorry for ignoring you," she told us, though the words felt stilted and unnatural. She took in a careful breath before letting it out. "I'm here as part of another... Investigation, I suppose you could put it."
"Another investigation aside from the murder?" Felicity asked with a small tilt of her head. "What happened here aside from the murder?"
"It was... A kidnapping, I believe," Prosecutor Lin replied with a heavy sigh, and my stomach immediately dropped into my feet. Of all the awful things to be paired with a murder... We should have known this wasn't going to be as easy as we would have liked. If anything, this just felt like a natural turn of events in the worst way possible. "Or it was just a case of somebody going missing. It's hard to say for sure at this point, but I'm sure it was some kind of kidnapping. She wouldn't just... She wouldn't just run away like that. I know she wouldn't do that."
"Who went missing?" Lily questioned warily, though I could tell there was much more to her words than she was letting on. She was already thinking of at least ten suspects that would have earned this sort of response from Prosecutor Lin, and she was rationalizing just how true all of them could have been.
"It was... It was Niamh," Prosecutor Lin answered, and I went tense on the spot. I shouldn't have been all that surprised to hear that given just how upset she was, but I still hated having to hear it. My stomach churned with anxiety as she went on. "She was here last night, but nobody's seen her since then. I have no idea where she is, and just thinking of everything that could be happening to her right now... God, it's too much. I just want her to come back home..."
"We're going to find her," Detective Erikson assured her, something gleaming with determination in his eyes unlike anything I had ever seen from him. "No matter what, we're going to make sure that she's safe. I understand that might not do much to comfort you right now, but... You have to trust us."
"And I do," Prosecutor Lin assured him quickly. "Still, I don't know what I'm supposed to do about all of this until then. I can't prosecute the case, and that means somebody else is going to have to be in charge of all this, and I... I don't like that either."
"Do you have a suspect for the case yet?" I asked. I could already tell I wasn't going to like the answer to this question either, but I just let myself listen along. After all, our agency was probably going to end up defending them if we wanted the information we were looking for, and that meant learning as much as possible while we still had the time to do so."
"It... It was Pieter," Prosecutor Lin replied, and I felt my stomach knot itself over for at least the third time in just as many minutes. "He was found here at the crime scene when it was discovered."
"Can you tell us everything you know about the case?" Yuri inquired. "We want to do what we can to defend him, but we can't do that until we can hear everything we need to know." The adrenaline rush was starting to hit her, and I could tell by the way she leaned forward in anticipation.
"Last night, three people came here to the Council of Six headquarters," Detective Wattson began. "They all received a note from one of the judges asking to meet her here so they could discuss a recent string of cases. Given the circumstances, I feel like you can go on and guess exactly what the cases in question are."
I nodded. "You're talking about the Emsthorpe assassins," I said firmly. What else could have prompted a response like this? The assassins had been a thorn in everybody's sides lately, and even if they hadn't acted much over the course of the last few months, we were just waiting for the ball to drop. After hearing about the Night of Calamity, it was just a matter of time, and this... I couldn't help but wonder if perhaps this was the case they had been talking about all that time ago.
"Exactly," Detective Erikson replied. "They came here only to find that the note was a forgery... Or at the very least, that's what it's seeming like, but we're still working on the details of that specifically. When morning came, only one person in the building had managed to escape, seemingly unaware of everything that had happened elsewhere in the area. One of the other two people called here was unconscious in one of the rooms of the building and the third had disappeared entirely."
"I see..." I murmured. "And Pieter... Was he one of the people who was in the building?"
"Not exactly," Detective Wattson answered with a shake of her head. "He was here when the police discovered the scene of the murder, but he wasn't one of the people who was summoned here. He said that he wanted to get inside because he was worried about the others who were there. In the end... Well, he wound up discovering the body of our unknown victim, and he was arrested on the spot when the police showed up. The other hostage in the building-the only one who was left behind after all was said and done-had called the police as soon as she woke up, and that was all it took for him to be suspected for the crime."
"So there were three people in the building at the start of the night, and the victim and killer were inside without the knowledge of anybody else in the area," I began. "Of the three people who were summoned, one of them managed to walk away in one piece, one went missing, and the last one was still inside the building when morning came, seemingly after being injured in some way."
"Precisely," Detective Erikson confirmed. "You can probably hear more details about all of this if you go inside, but for the time being, that's about the extent of what we can share with you... My apologies for the lack of information, but we have few other options at this point, I'm afraid."
I shook my head. "Thank you for telling us everything you have," I said before turning to the rest of the group. "I suppose we should go inside and see what we can find from the people who are already in there."
"Yeah... You're probably right," Yuri agreed, but she was still watching Prosecutor Lin with a frown on her face. "Niamh was the one who went missing out of the three who were here last night, huh?"
Prosecutor Lin nodded. "Yeah... I don't know where she wound up though. Her phone has been switched off since about two in the morning yesterday. I don't know who summoned her here if that note was a forgery, but she didn't say a word about it to anybody either," she sighed with a shake of her head. "She wouldn't just run away without any prompting though. Something must have prompted her to leave like that. I can't... I can't imagine she would just... Leave!"
"We're going to find her," Detective Erikson told her once more. "We have many people searching for her already, and we'll make sure she comes out on the other side. I agree that she wouldn't have just gone missing like that for no reason. Something must have happened, and I'm sure that we'll understand the logic behind it soon enough."
"I would agree," Lily chimed in. "I mean, if we say that the Emsthorpe family is involved with this-which wouldn't be a stretch at all given what's happened over the course of the last few years-then that means they wouldn't do something like kidnap her. If I had to guess, they would have probably tried to make a public example of her. That's what I'm thinking, at the very least. She's probably safe in some way."
"I know that, but... I'm just worried," Prosecutor Lin sighed. She let one hand come up to rub at her temple. "It feels like everything in my family is falling apart because of this case... Pieter's been arrested, Niamh has gone missing, and Chrysalis is..."
"Inside the building, isn't she?" Sky asked, and Prosecutor Lin nodded. He looked back to the rest of us, unsurprised by this turn of events. "I guess we know who we should go and find when we get the chance to hear more about this case."
"I don't think it's going to be quite so simple," Detective Wattson frowned. "She's been in some form of questioning or another ever since the police first showed up. She hasn't been able to share much with us about the case on account of what happened, but... Well, I feel like she can tell you more about that when you can go and speak to her on your own. It might take a while, but..."
"There's a lot going on with this case, and we need to take things slowly," Yuri concluded. "We should start by gathering information about the other person who was here last night. Who was it that managed to get away?"
"Ghastly," Prosecutor Lin answered with a heavy exhale between clenched lips. "He says he didn't see anything and just walked out after nothing happened overnight. He didn't see anything out of the ordinary, and I believe him, but... I don't understand why any of this is happening the way that it is."
"Chief Prosecutor Bespoke, Chrysalis, and Prosecutor Wood..." Sky murmured, realization dawning on his face. He stared down at the ground for a long moment, horror writing itself across his features, before shaking his head. "We need to get our hands on more information. Come on. It's time for us to head inside."
"Good luck," Prosecutor Lin told us with a strained smile. "If you need anything from me, all you need to do is say so. I'm going to be around here as long as I can be unless a lead about Niamh comes up somewhere else."
"We'll tell you if we need something then," Victoria nodded. Prosecutor Lin returned the gesture before turning back to Detective Erikson and Detective Wattson to hear anything she could about the case. The three began chatting quietly as the rest of us walked away, and I watched them for a long moment before turning my focus to the other attorneys from the agency.
"I suppose we have our answers about where Pieter, Chrysalis, and Mr. Morix are," Felicity remarked. "If Pieter has been arrested, then we're going to need to go see him in the detention center. We should also try to look around here for any information we can get our hands on."
"I want to go and see Pieter," Victoria declared. "I know we should probably look around here as long as we're in the area, but... I need to go and make sure that he's alright. He would do the same for me if I was in trouble like this, and in fact, he has. I have to do something for his sake."
"There's a lot going on with this case. Maybe it would be for the best if we split up for a little while," Lily suggested. "I'd be happy to stay here to look around for more information."
"Then Felicity and I can go with Victoria to speak with Pieter, and Deirdre and Yuri can stay here with you!" Sky declared, speaking all too quickly for it to be normal. "We'll see you all later!"
Sky grabbed Felicity and Victoria's wrists before marching in the opposite direction of the building. Lily watched him go with a sigh before looking back to me and Yuri. "Well, I guess we know what we have to do now," she concluded. "Let's see what this case has to offer."
It would be nothing good, we were sure, but what choice did we have?
the date on this case is a reference fun fact
-Digital