It had been a long time since Vi had been in the police station, but she was making that time up quickly. She barely went home anymore, opting more often than not to spend the night in the couch in Caitlyn's office. She had to much work to do to justify going home to sleep. Drive time in between work and home was time she could be hunting down her sister. She found herself more often than not poring over the huge map of the city that made it's home in the largest conference room of the station, spread out across the long wooden table. They had been painstakingly recording every sighting of the criminal in the last six months; a blue flag for a sighting, a green flag for a possible hideout, and a red flag for a break in. Caitlyn thought that they might be able to spot a pattern, predict where she would hit next.
Lately though, Jinx had seemingly stopped her rampage. They hadn't had a recorded sighting in a week, and a break in for twice that. Vi scanned the map for the umpteenth time, trying in vain to find something she might have missed. "Let's go over it again" she muttered to herself. "She hit a museum Sunday, a bank Monday, a mansion Tuesday, a church Wednesday..."
She always had to pause on that one. Why in the hell had she chosen to rob a church? That was so unlike her, so abnormal to her usual antics. She hit big places, buildings that were huge and full of complex architecture. A museum, sure. But a church? It wasn't even one of the grander ones that the wealthier residents frequented. It was a tiny downtown church, barely able to hold two hundred worshipers. Vi retrieved the report of the crime and skimmed it again.
"Destroyed church" she read "mostly with small arms fire. Ceiling partially collapsed, doors destroyed, walls riddled with bullet holes, statue cut down. Stolen: Two large tanzenite gems that were housed in the statues eyes." None of it had changed from when she had read it five minutes ago, but she couldn't help but reread it. It was like a puzzle, taunting her every time she read it.
"You're missing something" it whispered in her ears, laughing slightly. Vi frowned angrily. This was the only out of the ordinary place she had hit EVER, and yet there was nothing here. Vi threw the report down angrily and slumped into one of the chairs that surrounded the table. Her head fell into her hands and she sighed, lightly massaging her aching skull. She finally knew how the sheriff felt when she hunted C; constantly one step behind the bastard at all times, being taunted by a clue or a crime that just didn't add up until long after it was useful. "What am I gonna do" she muttered absent mindedly.
"Morning Violet" came a cool voice from the door. Vi looked up quickly, her worries fading a bit as she saw Caitlyn enter the room. "Did you spend the night here again?"
Vi looked at her watch. Six in the morning. "That would be a yes" she said, half smiling at the woman.
Caitlyn walked behind the enforcer and massaged her tired shoulders just the way she liked it. Vi had only been back for a few days, maybe two weeks, but it felt like she had never left. Jinx had pulled the two of them closer than they had ever been without her. A dry smile split Vi's lips when she thought about it a bit more, realizing the absurdity of it all. "I just really want to catch her, Cait" Vi sighed.
"Any new leads?" the Sheriff asked hopefully, but Vi just shook her head.
"Everything's stale" she replied. "I know there's something to this church though. Something isn't right about it, it's just not in Jinx's MO."
Caitlyn wrapped her arms around Vi's neck in a light hug. "You've told me that about seven hundred times, love." she replied.
"I know, I know" Vi said irritably. "But I just KNOW there's something we're missing! There's no dam reason why she would rob this church!"
Caitlyn was silent for a moment. Vi rubbed her arms, her mind elsewhere. "Maybe" Caitlyn said after a while "she just wanted some shiny rocks." She pecked Vi on the cheek quickly and slid away from her, making her way out of the room. "You're going to go home and sleep" she said with her back to Vi. "And yes, that is an order."
The door closed with a thump, leaving Vi alone with her thoughts once more. Caitlyn's words echoed in her mind, bouncing from one side to the other like some strange game of tennis. Two shiny rocks, completely out of the ordinary, completely meaningless...
But what if they weren't meaningless? Vi stared at the discarded report silently. What if they were very, very important? What if they had been looking at Jinx's rampage completely wrong? She retrieved the report once more and stared at it. Stolen: Two large tanzenite gems that were housed in the statues eyes. Two large tanzenite gems. Tanzenite. It was some kind of rare gem, highly sought after for religious purposes. It shifted color depending on lighting conditions, but had no other observed purpose. Vi reached across the table for the phone and dialed it slowly, still staring at the words. After a few moments of ringing, a groggy voice answered.
"Hello...?" Jayce said sleepily.
"Hey ass face" Vi said quickly "do you know what tanzenite is? Does it do anything?"
Jayce was silent for a moment. "What the fuck are you talking about Vi?" he asked. "It's like six in the morning, can't this wait?"
"It really can't" Vi replied shortly.
Jayce sighed, still tired and irritable. "You're asking me an extremely complex hextech question before I've even had breakfast." Silence for a moment. Vi waited for him to respond. "You're really going to wait till I answer, aren't you." Vi said nothing. Jayce sighed again. "It's a light conductor" he said simply. "Heimerdinger's thought for years that it could be used to focus lasers, even amplify them, far more effectively than any other gemstone. He's never gotten it to work though. Says they keep shattering before he can tune the frequency, and since they're so rare it's way easier just to use diamonds or-"
Vi had already hung up the phone. She stared in horror at the report like it was a pile of corpses as the puzzle pieces fell into place. She picked up the report from the museum, reading the stolen section. "Various ancient runewar artifacts as well as one Zaunite tank used during the Ionian invasion. Non functioning." She threw it aside and picked up the one from the bank, her eyes racing back and forth. "Stolen: two tons of gold bars. Various gems. Stole research notes belonging to the scientist Heimerdinger." She tossed that one aside as her stomach turned to lead. The had missed it, she thought. They had all missed it for this long. Was it to late?
Vi was suddenly very afraid. She stood up so quickly that her chair toppled over. Before it even came to a rest she was out the door, scrambling down the mostly empty hallway. She rammed strait into an officer, sending papers flying in all directions. The man was shouting in anger, shaking his fist at Vi, but she was already gone, bursting at breakneck speed into Caitlyn's office.
The Sheriff nearly jumped out of her chair in fright. "Gods you scared the sh-" she started to say.
"She's building a weapon" Vi interrupted loudly, slamming her fists down on Caitlyn's desk. "A huge weapon, something so big it could take out anything we could throw it's way. The army couldn't take it down."
"Slow down" Caitlyn said calmly, raising her hands. "Breathe. Relax."
Needless to say, this did not calm the pinket down. She bristled angrily, her face flushing red. "There's no time to calm down!" she yelled. "She's probably already finished the fucking thing! We have to warn the military! Warn everyone!"
Caitlyn's phone rang loudly, but she ignored it. "Walk me though it Vi." she said calmly.
"Tanzenite" Vi said quickly. "We didn't think it did anything because it doesn't; not yet anyways. The Donger thought it could conduct light really well, well enough to amplify it if tuned properly, but he could never get it to work and the stuffs so expensive that he just abandoned it. But Jay is smart, like really really fucking smart, so she's probably figured it out and implemented it by now, so she's got a super laser, and when she raided that museum she stole a tank, so she's got something to house the mechanism in-"
"For fucks sake Vi calm down!" Caitlyn said. "Breath, please, you're going to pass out if you don't slow down."
Vi heard the faint ding of the elevator. "I can't calm down!" she shouted back desperately. "Don't you get it? She's-"
Vi didn't get to finish that statement. Intense heat, like she had never felt, ripped though the office like a wave. Vi was thrown across the desk as a flash of bright red, the brightest light she had ever seen, and the sound of utter destruction blew her away. She struck the back wall hard, tangled in Caitlyn's limbs as she too was effected by the explosion. Vi rolled off of the Sheriff and blinked hard, trying to regain her vision numbly. She heard a dull ringing and nothing else, her senses temporarily overtaken by the event. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she heard a laugh.
Tick tock, tick tock, tick tock. Jinx twitched her nose irritably. Tick tock, Tick tock. She looked around angrily, searching for the source of the ticking. It was annoying, like nails grating on the chalkboard in her mind. Tick tock, tick tock, tick tock. It was coming from a watch, she realized, one worn by the burly henchman sitting across from her in the back of the moving van. She clenched her fists and tried to think of something else. Her new gun was so pretty, so complex. Tick tock, tick tock. It would blow stuff up real good. Tick tock, tick tock. Could probably kill plenty of people with it, not just the two she had planned for. Tick tock, tick tock.
She swung her fist suddenly, smashing the fragile watch with ease, causing the man to cry out in surprise. The ticking stopped. "What the fuck?!" he shouted. The other men in sitting around them looked up in shock, watching the scene unfold.
Jinx didn't reply. The nails had stopped grating on her brain and the voices dimmed. She smiled briefly.
"That was fucking expensive!" the man complained. The nails started up again.
"It was annoying" Jinx said through gritted teeth. "and you're starting to be too."
He opened his mouth to respond, but the brute beside him silenced him with a light hand to his leg. The man looked over at his partner, who shook his head silently. The man didn't speak again.
"It's almost time" Violets voice rang out in her head. "you're so close now Jay. I'm so proud of you."
Jinx smiled widely, her stomach bubbling up from the praise. "I know" she whispered to herself happily. The man across from Jinx shot his partner a questioning look. He just shook his head again. Best not to ask it said. You don't want an answer.
The truck jerked to a hault, breaking Jinx from her concentration. She looked around suddenly, angrily, as the door slid open loudly. Light poured into the truck, blinding Jinx for a moment. "We're here" someone said. Jinx heard the hustle and bustle of the street though the open door as people went about their days, oblivious to her. Oblivious to what she could do. What she was about to do.
They filed out one at a time, hefting huge and heavy instrument cases. Jinx held her cello over her shoulder, pushing past the other four men and into the building. "Up to the top" Violet said to her. "Up up up, all the way to where they work. Up to the police station. Up up up."
The tiny receptionist looked up as the bell atop the door chimed and the burly criminals entered accompanied by the tiny woman. Her eyes widened in horror as she recognized them. Her shaking hands shot to the phone and she dialed frantically, calling the Sheriffs office. She watched as they entered the elevator one by one. No one picked up the phone.
"Up up up" Violet whispered as the elevator slit upward, silently moving closer and closer to delivering its payload. Jinx felt it slow and stop. A light ding filled the packed elevator. "Kill them all" Violet said. "Every one of them. Kill them all."
"Yes" Jinx replied out loud happily. "Kill them all." She pushed the hidden trigger atop the heavy case she carried. A whirring sound built within it, accompanied by a tiny buzzing that escalated in volume. The hairs on the back of Jinx's neck stood on end suddenly, and with a building feeling of glee, the weapon fired.
Hey hey hey! Almost done with part two everyone. So very, very close. I was planning on having next chapter and this one be one, with one after, but I felt like it would cheapen the ending, so I ended up splitting them into two. Hopefully you'll agree with my decision when you read number 20.
I wanted to apologize for missing my deadline for Monday again. My depression, which I thought had been getting better recently, just flared up again, so it's been really hard to motivate myself to do anything other than play The Witcher 3 and listen to music. I hope it was worth the wait.
As always, if you want to support me further, please keep reading, leave a review, or request a new story through a pm! I read and respond to every single review and pm I get, so don't feel like I'll just ignore you. Thank you all so much for your continued support of my writing. It really brightens my spirits when I read a review from a fan, or see that I've gotten a new follower. Love you all,
Abe