The alarm clock screeched its song at 6 o'clock in the morning. The dark-haired man angrily opened his eyes and sat up to squint at his screaming clock. With a sigh he reached over and clicked in the power button. He rolled to look at his sleeping wife next to him; she seemed to be unphased the sudden alarm.
He let out a sigh and stroked her ebony hair as he carefully crept out of bed. The man tip-toed his way to the master bathroom with a pair of jeans and a white tee-shirt under his arm. After a quick shower and other grooming rituals he emerged back into his bedroom and quickly took notice of the now empty bed. Plucking his glasses off the nightstand, the put them on his face and sauntered into the kitchen.
His wife was getting a pair of sleepy toddlers fastened into high chairs and presenting them with sliced bananas and blueberries for breakfast. The two children squealed in delight and started shoving the fruit on their face and attempting to feed themselves.
The man smiled at the scene as he snuck up on his wife and wrapped his arms around her waist. "Need help?" the man lovingly smooched his wife on the cheek and rested his head on her shoulder, having to crouch because of the height difference.
His wife chuckled and snuggled into him. "No, not really. I'm pretty good an this mom thing." His wife made her way over to the fridge and grabbed a blue lunchbox and handed it over to her husband. "You be safe out there, Josh."
Josh chuckled as he accepted the lunchbox and crouched down to smooch his wife's nose. "I always am, Scar." The man looked at his two children and waved to them. "Luke, Leia. Be good for your mother. Your the galaxy's last hope."
The two toddlers laughed and "waved" to their father as he exited the kitchen through the garage door, snatching a briefcase off the end-table that was nearby.
He retrieved his keys from the case and unlocked the door of his deep-purple 2014 Chevy Camaro. He stepped inside and and closed the door behind him, tossing his briefcase in his passenger seat. He sat there momentarily, eyeing his briefcase. With his right hand, he unlatched it and flipped it open and grabbed the item haunting his thoughts.
It was a leather journal--expertly made with deep brown leather with a semi-familiar moon-like sigil on it. He thumbed through the pages again, like he'd done for the hundredth time. Each page was filled with sketches and side-notes of fantastical beasts and exotic races. The drawings seemed familiar to him as he thumbed over a chalk drawing of a faerie and read the note to the side of the drawing.
Very timid by nature, the fae are most active at night and take the form of butterflies, moths and other lepidopterans.
"Whoever wrote this must have either been a madman or someone way to into their D&D campaign." Josh tossed the journal back into his briefcase and started his car. The rumble of the loud engine echoed loudly in the garage as he pressed garage opener on his visor and backed out into the street. Clicking the button again to close the door, Josh took off down the street and made his way to the work.
The drive to the police station was mediocre at best, although Josh did enjoy jamming out and singing along with his "Dad music". His pitch was awful but his heart was in the right place. He parked in his usual spot and turned off his car, jamming the keys into his jacket pocket. He opened the door and has he turned and placed one foot out of the car to step out he was met with the muzzle of a pistol just inches in front of his face. Any normal man would have lost it as Josh slowly raised his hands to comply with this would-be carjacker but he couldn't help but smirk at the fact that this would-be assailant just messed with the wrong detective.
[22 MINUTES, 17 SECONDS EARLIER] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Next! Step up to the white line!" A very bored, very old jail attendant sighed through her mandatory phrase of the day. She sat in the corner of a white painted room, floor and walls made of concrete. It was a typical set up of camera and computer at one end, height chart painted on the wall at the other end of the room. It's how jails and prisons start your modeling career with a mugshot. Just don't smile, that's all it takes to annoy miss jail attendant.
The next in line was a young man, already breaking the rule with a small smirk, like he knew something they didn't. His eyes were hazel-green, and his hair was supposed to be short and brown according to his recently entered record. Two police officers pushed him up to the wall so they could measure his height. Five foot, nine inches. Average. What wasn't average were his clothes, a beat up pair of jeans and a long plain leather jacket half covering a novelty black T-shirt with a T-Rex wielding a claw grabber, the bold red text underneath read 'Unstoppable'. Black hiking shoes and a pair of handcuffs on his wrists rounded out the outfit, and the elder jail attendant knew she was in for an eye roll or two.
"Please state your name for the record." She sighed, getting ready to take the picture once she had all his information.
"James Carter." The young man replied, looking bored as he scanned around the room.
"And your charges?"
"Magic tricks, apparently." James broke into a grin, the handcuffs falling to the ground.
The two startled officers on either side of him flinched at the sound, one of them seeing James' free wrists and starting to yell. Before either officers could get anything done, James snapped both sets of fingers, releasing a flash of blue light that made short work of the room. Both officers were pinned against the wall beside him, the door to the cozy processing room slammed shut, and the camera spun around to face the wall. The policemen opened their mouths to yell, but the blue tendrils of light that held them, and the door, clamped over their mouths.
The elderly attendant who worked the computer let out a yelp of surprise, her rolly-chair flinching backwards by an astonishing half-inch. James' gaze settled on hers as she started the delicate process of standing up. "Whoa, where are you going in such a- ... well I was gonna say hurry..."
The lady growled at James as she clung to her armrests and managed to pull herself up. "What is- "
Another flash of light came from James' hands, and blue spirals of light clamped back down on the lady's wrists, pulling her back into her seat. "Please don't. I'll let you keep your mouth uncovered if you promise not to speak... same goes for all of you!"
James glanced back at the terrified officers, flashing a smile. With another flick of his wrist the lights covering their mouths faded away, freeing their voices. Instantly, one of the officers broke into a frantic screaming at which James flinched and snapped his fingers again, returning his gag. "Okay then..."
James glanced back at the elderly woman in the chair, who simply glared back in his direction. "Well, everyone looks calm now, so we can start! I'm here because one of you has been very, very bad."
His usual cheery demeanor grew dim, his brows furrowing with distaste as he scanned all three of them, eventually settling on the panicking officer who still had his mouth covered. The man's eyes were wild, darting around the room at all the magic and trying to make sense of it all. James narrowed his eyes at the man and stepped over to the next officer.
"You haven't started screaming yet, doesn't all this look funny to you? I'd be freaking out!" James chuckled, patting the man's shoulder.
"I-I-I-"
"Well don't go into shock, I'm only here for one of you... Someone in this room... is a murderer. Now, I checked your thoughts- and most of the cops' thoughts outside and I know I distinctly picked up on a few key facts that tell me the killer of Emily Greenwood is right here in this room." James spoke softly, watching the reactions of each of the officers and the lady when he heard her creak in her chair uncomfortably. The man with the magic over his lips looked confused, and still terrified. The lady looked furious and perplexed. But the man who could speak said nothing, his eyes showed challenge, to which James focused on.
"You. You and I are gonna talk, because mister, you've crossed a line..." James started before the man finally spoke up.
"I didn't kill anyone! Freak!" He spat, wriggling a futile attempt at escaping his magic bonds.
"Oh, you're guilty. Maybe not of murder, but..." James stepped away from his and back to the muzzled cop. "You there. You've got a wife. Beautiful, tall, and gorgeous new daughter! You live in a brick house, pretty uncommon in this side of Chicago, and the man over to my right who thinks I'm a freak is your partner? Oh! And your best friend! Wow. Man- you-"
He broke off to shut his eyes and think for half a second, opening them back a moment later with a sudden look of glee.
"And Skittles in your coat pocket!"
As James moved to relieve the man of his sweets, the un-gaged officer piped up again.
"Oh, so you're reading his mind now?! Or you're a stalker! Take your freaking light glow-y sh-"
James didn't look at the man as he covered his mouth with more magic. "Actually I was reading your mind, Officer Henway. And for being a best friend you sure know a whole lot about Richard's wife. Wanna see another magic trick? How about I show poor terrified Richard your hotel receipt from February, where you took his wife while he was looking after your house!"
Richard's eyes shot even wider, and the panicking stopped as he looked over at Mr. Henway with a slow-building anger.
"Well, look, I'm not here to set up a divorce, and I'm not here to kill someone for cheating... I'm here for the werewolf who killed a seven year old girl." James froze in place after speaking, watching both officers reactions carefully.
"Now you were changed when you did it, so it would be hard to read your thoughts, and you no doubt would be actively blocking it out- you did kill a little girl. But I can't pick up on anything that would suggest you guys are hiding a secret that big. But one of you slipped up. When I mentioned Emily's name earlier, one of you in this room felt regret for half a second, but I couldn't narrow down who. So I would normally have to go through each of your minds one by one until I figured it out, but Officer Henway here has already helped me out with that. His first thought when I used magic was to begin frantically thinking of his best friend's wife. So he either has something to hide, or he's just a scumbag. I love taking down a scumbag, but I came here to catch a werewolf."
James stepped over to Henway, meeting his enraged eyes as he continued. "... Good disguise. You picked a man with only one friend, hardly a social life, isolated most days. The cane in your car is probably fake, same with your limp. You tried to make yourself look frail and useless so that nobody would guess it's you... but there's nobody else in this room who fits the persona of a distant, frail old- ............."
James stopped in mid sentence, closing his eyes with a look like he wanted to shoot himself. He opened them to the sound of snarls, and both cops staring past his shoulder with a look of utter terror. There was a metallic twang as the sounds of his magic restraints snapped around the chair behind him.
".... Right ... " James turned around slowly to the old lady in the chair, who was no longer a lady at all. The snarling, seven foot, wolf-woman spit as she roared, her twisted yellow eyes fixated on the three men in front of her. With a massive sing of her arms she knocked a yelping James aside and charged the room, tearing through the door anbd into the hallway.
Winded, James bolted up in horror. "Sorry!" He waved the magic away and freed the gentlemen, snagging one of their guns as he bolted out of the destroyed doorway. The whole place was in a panic. Floor tiles broken, walls scratched, the werewolf was ripping the place to shreds on her way out. James bolted down the halls, following the destruction to the main atrium, finding an officer split in two at the foot of the stairs. He just barely caught a glimpse of the old-lady-wolf busting out the front door and onto the streets. She was going to run.
Pushing past officers, James made his way to the parking garage doors and shouldered his way through. He scanned all the cars to see if any were running, and loaded his pistol as he headed for the nearest parked car, a purple Camaro. He sprinted to the door just as the driver was opening it, and held the gun out.
"I need to borrow this!"
He let out a sigh and stroked her ebony hair as he carefully crept out of bed. The man tip-toed his way to the master bathroom with a pair of jeans and a white tee-shirt under his arm. After a quick shower and other grooming rituals he emerged back into his bedroom and quickly took notice of the now empty bed. Plucking his glasses off the nightstand, the put them on his face and sauntered into the kitchen.
His wife was getting a pair of sleepy toddlers fastened into high chairs and presenting them with sliced bananas and blueberries for breakfast. The two children squealed in delight and started shoving the fruit on their face and attempting to feed themselves.
The man smiled at the scene as he snuck up on his wife and wrapped his arms around her waist. "Need help?" the man lovingly smooched his wife on the cheek and rested his head on her shoulder, having to crouch because of the height difference.
His wife chuckled and snuggled into him. "No, not really. I'm pretty good an this mom thing." His wife made her way over to the fridge and grabbed a blue lunchbox and handed it over to her husband. "You be safe out there, Josh."
Josh chuckled as he accepted the lunchbox and crouched down to smooch his wife's nose. "I always am, Scar." The man looked at his two children and waved to them. "Luke, Leia. Be good for your mother. Your the galaxy's last hope."
The two toddlers laughed and "waved" to their father as he exited the kitchen through the garage door, snatching a briefcase off the end-table that was nearby.
He retrieved his keys from the case and unlocked the door of his deep-purple 2014 Chevy Camaro. He stepped inside and and closed the door behind him, tossing his briefcase in his passenger seat. He sat there momentarily, eyeing his briefcase. With his right hand, he unlatched it and flipped it open and grabbed the item haunting his thoughts.
It was a leather journal--expertly made with deep brown leather with a semi-familiar moon-like sigil on it. He thumbed through the pages again, like he'd done for the hundredth time. Each page was filled with sketches and side-notes of fantastical beasts and exotic races. The drawings seemed familiar to him as he thumbed over a chalk drawing of a faerie and read the note to the side of the drawing.
Very timid by nature, the fae are most active at night and take the form of butterflies, moths and other lepidopterans.
"Whoever wrote this must have either been a madman or someone way to into their D&D campaign." Josh tossed the journal back into his briefcase and started his car. The rumble of the loud engine echoed loudly in the garage as he pressed garage opener on his visor and backed out into the street. Clicking the button again to close the door, Josh took off down the street and made his way to the work.
The drive to the police station was mediocre at best, although Josh did enjoy jamming out and singing along with his "Dad music". His pitch was awful but his heart was in the right place. He parked in his usual spot and turned off his car, jamming the keys into his jacket pocket. He opened the door and has he turned and placed one foot out of the car to step out he was met with the muzzle of a pistol just inches in front of his face. Any normal man would have lost it as Josh slowly raised his hands to comply with this would-be carjacker but he couldn't help but smirk at the fact that this would-be assailant just messed with the wrong detective.
[22 MINUTES, 17 SECONDS EARLIER] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Next! Step up to the white line!" A very bored, very old jail attendant sighed through her mandatory phrase of the day. She sat in the corner of a white painted room, floor and walls made of concrete. It was a typical set up of camera and computer at one end, height chart painted on the wall at the other end of the room. It's how jails and prisons start your modeling career with a mugshot. Just don't smile, that's all it takes to annoy miss jail attendant.
The next in line was a young man, already breaking the rule with a small smirk, like he knew something they didn't. His eyes were hazel-green, and his hair was supposed to be short and brown according to his recently entered record. Two police officers pushed him up to the wall so they could measure his height. Five foot, nine inches. Average. What wasn't average were his clothes, a beat up pair of jeans and a long plain leather jacket half covering a novelty black T-shirt with a T-Rex wielding a claw grabber, the bold red text underneath read 'Unstoppable'. Black hiking shoes and a pair of handcuffs on his wrists rounded out the outfit, and the elder jail attendant knew she was in for an eye roll or two.
"Please state your name for the record." She sighed, getting ready to take the picture once she had all his information.
"James Carter." The young man replied, looking bored as he scanned around the room.
"And your charges?"
"Magic tricks, apparently." James broke into a grin, the handcuffs falling to the ground.
The two startled officers on either side of him flinched at the sound, one of them seeing James' free wrists and starting to yell. Before either officers could get anything done, James snapped both sets of fingers, releasing a flash of blue light that made short work of the room. Both officers were pinned against the wall beside him, the door to the cozy processing room slammed shut, and the camera spun around to face the wall. The policemen opened their mouths to yell, but the blue tendrils of light that held them, and the door, clamped over their mouths.
The elderly attendant who worked the computer let out a yelp of surprise, her rolly-chair flinching backwards by an astonishing half-inch. James' gaze settled on hers as she started the delicate process of standing up. "Whoa, where are you going in such a- ... well I was gonna say hurry..."
The lady growled at James as she clung to her armrests and managed to pull herself up. "What is- "
Another flash of light came from James' hands, and blue spirals of light clamped back down on the lady's wrists, pulling her back into her seat. "Please don't. I'll let you keep your mouth uncovered if you promise not to speak... same goes for all of you!"
James glanced back at the terrified officers, flashing a smile. With another flick of his wrist the lights covering their mouths faded away, freeing their voices. Instantly, one of the officers broke into a frantic screaming at which James flinched and snapped his fingers again, returning his gag. "Okay then..."
James glanced back at the elderly woman in the chair, who simply glared back in his direction. "Well, everyone looks calm now, so we can start! I'm here because one of you has been very, very bad."
His usual cheery demeanor grew dim, his brows furrowing with distaste as he scanned all three of them, eventually settling on the panicking officer who still had his mouth covered. The man's eyes were wild, darting around the room at all the magic and trying to make sense of it all. James narrowed his eyes at the man and stepped over to the next officer.
"You haven't started screaming yet, doesn't all this look funny to you? I'd be freaking out!" James chuckled, patting the man's shoulder.
"I-I-I-"
"Well don't go into shock, I'm only here for one of you... Someone in this room... is a murderer. Now, I checked your thoughts- and most of the cops' thoughts outside and I know I distinctly picked up on a few key facts that tell me the killer of Emily Greenwood is right here in this room." James spoke softly, watching the reactions of each of the officers and the lady when he heard her creak in her chair uncomfortably. The man with the magic over his lips looked confused, and still terrified. The lady looked furious and perplexed. But the man who could speak said nothing, his eyes showed challenge, to which James focused on.
"You. You and I are gonna talk, because mister, you've crossed a line..." James started before the man finally spoke up.
"I didn't kill anyone! Freak!" He spat, wriggling a futile attempt at escaping his magic bonds.
"Oh, you're guilty. Maybe not of murder, but..." James stepped away from his and back to the muzzled cop. "You there. You've got a wife. Beautiful, tall, and gorgeous new daughter! You live in a brick house, pretty uncommon in this side of Chicago, and the man over to my right who thinks I'm a freak is your partner? Oh! And your best friend! Wow. Man- you-"
He broke off to shut his eyes and think for half a second, opening them back a moment later with a sudden look of glee.
"And Skittles in your coat pocket!"
As James moved to relieve the man of his sweets, the un-gaged officer piped up again.
"Oh, so you're reading his mind now?! Or you're a stalker! Take your freaking light glow-y sh-"
James didn't look at the man as he covered his mouth with more magic. "Actually I was reading your mind, Officer Henway. And for being a best friend you sure know a whole lot about Richard's wife. Wanna see another magic trick? How about I show poor terrified Richard your hotel receipt from February, where you took his wife while he was looking after your house!"
Richard's eyes shot even wider, and the panicking stopped as he looked over at Mr. Henway with a slow-building anger.
"Well, look, I'm not here to set up a divorce, and I'm not here to kill someone for cheating... I'm here for the werewolf who killed a seven year old girl." James froze in place after speaking, watching both officers reactions carefully.
"Now you were changed when you did it, so it would be hard to read your thoughts, and you no doubt would be actively blocking it out- you did kill a little girl. But I can't pick up on anything that would suggest you guys are hiding a secret that big. But one of you slipped up. When I mentioned Emily's name earlier, one of you in this room felt regret for half a second, but I couldn't narrow down who. So I would normally have to go through each of your minds one by one until I figured it out, but Officer Henway here has already helped me out with that. His first thought when I used magic was to begin frantically thinking of his best friend's wife. So he either has something to hide, or he's just a scumbag. I love taking down a scumbag, but I came here to catch a werewolf."
James stepped over to Henway, meeting his enraged eyes as he continued. "... Good disguise. You picked a man with only one friend, hardly a social life, isolated most days. The cane in your car is probably fake, same with your limp. You tried to make yourself look frail and useless so that nobody would guess it's you... but there's nobody else in this room who fits the persona of a distant, frail old- ............."
James stopped in mid sentence, closing his eyes with a look like he wanted to shoot himself. He opened them to the sound of snarls, and both cops staring past his shoulder with a look of utter terror. There was a metallic twang as the sounds of his magic restraints snapped around the chair behind him.
".... Right ... " James turned around slowly to the old lady in the chair, who was no longer a lady at all. The snarling, seven foot, wolf-woman spit as she roared, her twisted yellow eyes fixated on the three men in front of her. With a massive sing of her arms she knocked a yelping James aside and charged the room, tearing through the door anbd into the hallway.
Winded, James bolted up in horror. "Sorry!" He waved the magic away and freed the gentlemen, snagging one of their guns as he bolted out of the destroyed doorway. The whole place was in a panic. Floor tiles broken, walls scratched, the werewolf was ripping the place to shreds on her way out. James bolted down the halls, following the destruction to the main atrium, finding an officer split in two at the foot of the stairs. He just barely caught a glimpse of the old-lady-wolf busting out the front door and onto the streets. She was going to run.
Pushing past officers, James made his way to the parking garage doors and shouldered his way through. He scanned all the cars to see if any were running, and loaded his pistol as he headed for the nearest parked car, a purple Camaro. He sprinted to the door just as the driver was opening it, and held the gun out.
"I need to borrow this!"