Chronicles of The Omniverse Archived Lutetia City: Lupaix

"Your office door is thinner than you think," was DuPuis' way of explaining the handshake, and a small smile flitted across his lips.

He turned to Luna, spared her a long glance where he took her in - much like the chaotic way he took in the room - and responded with one word:

"No."

He reached into his pocket, pulled out four photographs, locking eyes with Jeanne.

"I need a consult," he said, lightly, "on a case I just picked up. The square murders? I was wondering if you could help me out - the library only has some information on these."

He placed photographs - eight of them - on Jeanne's desk. Pictured in each was a different carving on a human body - an intricate symbol of Caer.

"Three vics," he said, "two dead on the scene, one driven insane. The one that's insane keeps carving these into his body. I cross-referenced at the library, but I didn't get it nailed down. Either of you know?"
 
Luna met Jeanne's eye with sudden embarassment and then a peaceful understanding, turning her attention to the photos. Then suddenly regretting it and finding herself sighing heavily. "This is so horrible.." She paused, chastised herself, then spoke again. "Could you explain what a vic was? And do we know who these people are?"
 
The other two didn't seem to understand like Jeanne did because the woman suddenly dropped her pen and became very still.

"This doesn't follow the pattern of any crimes we've seen in this area."

She reached forward and picked up one of the pictures, fingers trembling.

"... or dig up something that's not going to be happy to see us."

Those damned words echoed in her mind like a metronome. She dropped the picture, bringing her hand up to cover her mouth. There was a brief narrowing of her eyes where she was trying to put everything together. Suddenly, she gasped:

"... my son. I need to find my son."
 
Vernon shot Luna a brief look of annoyance before his countenance softened slightly. "First day, right. Vic is short for victim - perp is perpetrator. Cops tend to cut out a lot of syllables-"

He stopped, frowning at the look on Jeanne's face, his eyes shooting from the pen to her. He started to bend towards it, to pick it up, hesitated. Watched her face.

When she said it, he reached upwards, pinched the bridge of his nose. Then, he turned to grab her coat.

"Explain on the way, then. Luna, can you grab the photographs? Look at them in the car, tell me what you know?"
 
Luna nodded, taking the photographs and transcribing them effortlessly as she followed after the others out of the room. She counted eight and, after memorizing the information she wanted to question, folded them together and tied them with a band. Once away, she called out in her calming tone, "I have them. But are we moving to find your literal son, Detective Bonheur?" Her face clouded over slightly in confusion. "Is he the third party related to these photos? The wild, living one?"
 
"No. He's just a stupid teenager who hasn't replied to any texts in the last day," growled Jeanne.

She guided them to her car, insisting on driving. It wasn't until all the doors were closed that she began to speak. "Those were markings of the Caer. Can't say I'm surprised no one else realizes the significance. The church assured everyone they wouldn't need to anymore."

The car started with a hum. "If I'm right in my assumptions, the church was wrong, and I can't let my son stay here while I investigate. I'm putting his life at risk."
 
"Caer," he hummed, brows knitting as he flipped open a notebook - labelled Wednesday - licked a finger and jotted it down with a stub of a pencil, riddled with chew marks.

"C-A-E-R? Tell me about that."
 
Taking her seat, Luna quickly set to recalling that information. "One moment." She breathed and felt the knowledge of the Caer concept within her, pulling from her chest threads of dull light which stuck to the tips of her fingers. She moved her hands in a quick circle, the strings reaching into her body traveled up through her crown and back down to the base of her throat, snapping off into shards of crystal as she pulled her hands from her chest. Opening her eyes, then her mouth to sigh softly, she began constructing a crystalline figure with the strings, which connected between themselves and formed shards of lit glass. "It'll be more helpful to create a way to record what we learn on Caer during the investigation, however useful." Finished, she pressed her palms to the outermost faces of glass and drew her fingertips away from the points of the figure, now a crystal milky with light and distinguished figures. She drew a case for reading glasses from her bag and then placed a pair of strange spectacles upon her visage.

"It appears to be linked to both the massacre and domination of Lutetia City prior to its retrieval by the Paladins. I believe all were killed long ago." She lifted her glasses to her crown and placed the crystal on her lap, speaking matter-of-factly, without a trace of intonation or personal inflection. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she recognized the weakness of her final statement as it was linked solely to her Order of Submission and seemed weak in comparison to her own collected knowledge. She hid this thought behind a hard blink and a throat clearing. "This case could be the work of an occult-fanatic sending some message against the Monastery." She hardened her features, immediately seeking a more apt idea than that.
 
Jeanne's fingers drummed on the steering wheel as she listened to Luna. From the corner of her eye, she watched the cleric work her magic. It was a rather odd thing to see from a bible thumper. She drew her eyes briefly to the rear-view mirror at Vernon.

"Let's hope that's exactly what it is," the Bloodhound firmly stated. "It still means we have a hell of a maniac on our hands. Anyone who's capable of that amount of violence is unusual. I still suspect vampire. This might be a rogue group trying to revive the name, if not the family itself." She spun the wheel with one hand, the other tapped against her lips in thought. "Vernon, do you have any other leads? Suspects? Victims? Luna, is there anything the church might be hiding from us? I understand you might be sworn by your word, but this is just the time to let some information fly if you're conflicted."
 
Idly, Vernon flipped backwards in his notebook, studying a few select pages, pages that began with the words "Officer last seen," then flipped the pages shut.

"Only those," he responded, turning to stare out the window at the passing scenery. After a pause, he continued.

"Perp definitely wants us to think it's a werewolf - hence the bitten head on the female vic - but I think something else was the target, and what we're seeing is just the result. I want to look into the significance of the shop, too - the one that the other male vic was thrown through the window of."

He rubbed at his nose, closing tired eyes. "Doesn't add up. If the intent was to make us think werewolf, and start chasing that - why wouldn't you just leave the blood? I think the perp was trying something specific, fucked up or was distracted, challenged, or hurried, and had to leave fast. Unless the mind breaking of the alive vic was the target, but then why the violence?"

He shook his head. "Just doesn't add up."
 
Luna tilted her head in thought, resting a finger on her chin to give her hands something to do. "Did you take these photos yourself or were these brought from the crime scene? I don't think you ever disclosed the situation as it proceeds from deduced start to finish." She looked into the backseat to make eye contact, demonstrating her readiness to take apart the information. Her left hand, lying atop the crystal, had tips glowing ready to create a new inflection of this information within the crystal, creating a 'bag of evidence', so to speak.
 
Vernon's eyes flicked towards Jeanne, before staring back out of his window, watching the filthy streets roll past. There was a small silence as he closed his eyes, opening to the well worn page of his notebook out of habit, reciting from memory.

"6:36 pm, we have a blurry figure entering a shop, seeming to interact with three students outside. There's a lot of sudden movement, and perp appears to rip a limb off of Vic one. Vic two was taken, attacked, and placed on a coatrack at a tailor's at 6:47 pm. Vic three was unharmed, found naked and shaking on the floor, whispering to himself. Vic one's arm was placed in a history textbook."

Vernon paused, then. "A Lutetian history textbook. It took less than twelve minutes. The students were cleric hopefuls - students of the church."

Another possible motivations. Too many to count. His eyes opened, briefly, watched the curve of Jeanne's neck for a moment, before closing again.

"Vic three is now in a hospital, carving symbols into himself. The history textbook - another kind of symbol. The coatrack makes three."
 
Luna's eyes flashed with the absence of movement as she continued inquiring, seemingly unimpeded by the grief of one's own coming to harm and instead, furrowed her brow to discern to the forms which lay at the foundation of this crime scene. "I'm sorry, I'm having trouble understanding. So the three students are outside, is this blurry figure entering the shop another person or are the three victims separate from the students outside? I think I could orient the rest better with that resolved." Satisfied with her thought, she took a sharp breath suddenly, covering her mouth to hide her displeasure at what she was hearing. She looked down. 'It's three young people. Who could commit that kind of violence against innocence unless the perpetrator had reason to see guilt in their character.' She bit her lip. 'No, these weren't crimes of passion, they were crimes of deliberation, I can feel it. An Othering took place here, as always.' She sighed at her thoughts, then looked up again, hiding her moment of conflict under the guise of emotional turmoil. Because of course, they were separate.

Luna frowned genuinely now, ashamed at her inhumanity. 'Let this be resolved with the peace of the True Will, Selene', she prayed to herself. Luna turned her gaze outside the car, smiling quickly to show that she still listened vigorously and received their words.
 
"No, yes. Sorry," Vernon said, thumbing his eyelids. "Crossing my thoughts. The students are the victims. The blurry shape went into the shop, got something, came out again, and then the attacks happened."
 
"Mmm.." She sighed. Closing her eyes and looking back from the window, she muttered exactly what he said and drew more strings of light, laying them into the crystal and smoothing out the edges which tried to break the form now. "Jeanne, how close are we to the crime scene? I don't know enough about anything yet to be much more help than a recorder right now." She laughed, trying to ease the mood.
 
"All the way over at Lumiena Square. It'll take a while," she informed Luna. "Lutetia City is big. Lumiena is in Merveilleux, a different district altogether. Detective DuPuis and I were there yesterday."

All the while, she stewed over the details in her head as they passed through Bloodstone territory. She didn't bother to look for familiar faces today.

"I'll be taking us there. I live in Merveilleux, so I can hit two birds with one stone."
 
"You don't need me here for that," Vernon said, suddenly, then pointed to a street corner.

"That's my stop for now. I'll get your cell number, Officer, and call you if I have more questions."

He pocketed his notebook, undid his seatbelt, got ready to exit the car.
 
"Merveilleux.. Hmm." Luna smiled silently, thinking of her friend in the Merveilleux District. Not directly tied to this case or to the Order, the thought of entering a part of the city with some sense of familiarity warmed her. "You're leaving, detective? There's still something to discuss, while we have the ride there. If not the case, then maybe we should use this time to get more familiar with our partners." She glanced at Jeanne out of the corner of her eye, comfortably trusting that she was as adept at sensing others as she was, if not grandly moreso.
 
Jeanne looked back at Vernon through the rear-view mirror and nodded. She pulled over. "Be careful, Detective. This isn't your side of town. Lots of dogs around that like to bite," the told Vernon. "I'll be sure to keep in touch."

She glanced at Luna. "I'm sure DuPuis has a lot on his hands right now. You and I have work to do, as well."
 
Vernon responded with a half-wave, leaving the vehicle in a cold sweat.

They couldn't know - either of them - what he now understood was at stake.
 
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