Today was a bad day for Latona. And not the ‘I’m having such an off day” kind of bad day. No, it was the kind of bad day in which a psychopath calls you unexpectedly telling you he was after your blood and that of your candidates. A bad bad day. The mother of all bad days.
And it was going to be a very long day. Currently she was pacing back and forth in the staffroom of the ATC. Since her candidates were in danger she’d decided to stay in there all night in case something happened and she needed to see Intram and tell him just what was going on. As much as she disliked him, he was counselling Nika and if the kid was in danger Intram should know all the details. And then if he wanted to explain to Nika what Latona’s problem was and why she imposed the rules she had, then so be it. Nika was scared of her already and she suspected if she attempted to explain it she’d only make things worse.
Not that they could get much worse.
For now fortunately it was only a phone call and there was still the possibility it was a joke but she wasn’t going to risk ignoring it. If it was a joke then there were certainly a few suspects, a lot of people, particularly some of other pilots, disliked her but this was sick even for them. The weird feeling she got against her mental blocks when the phone cut off though certainly suggested it was a psychic; which made her all the more worried. Even so, since she had no real evidence to suggest a foreign psychic was threatening her candidates, she hadn’t reported it. Without hard evidence they’d probably just think she was being paranoid. And the other pilots were always finding ways to put her down, especially Seiteki, bitch.
Latona’s feet were starting to ache from pacing so she slumped down into one of chairs. The staff room was empty thankfully, she’d been hiding how nervous she was all day and the others might get suspicious if she suddenly started pacing backwards and forwards like she had. Sighing, her eyes roamed over the white wall in front of her anxiously, but stopped when she saw something taped to it. That hadn’t been there before…
She got up and walked over to it to find out it was an envelope. It was wet and a strange smelling clear liquid was dripping from it. Despite the liquid smudging the ink of address, the word ‘Latona’ was still readable.
She stared at it for a moment willing the name to change to someone else’s so she could just leave it where it was. If this was a joke it was not funny.
Tentatively she pulled the envelope down, turned it over and tore it open. More liquid spilled out as she did, as well as something white and squishy. Latona lifted it up with telekinesis and turned it round in mid-air trying to determine just was it was. From the looks of it, it appeared to be a squashed eyeball…
She turned away from the eyeball letting it drop to the floor as she glanced around the room, hoping someone would jump out and say ‘Gotcha!’ But no-one did, the room was still and silent except for her breathing and the sound of the strange liquid dripping which she could now only assume was the vitreous.
She turned back to the envelope and pulled a stiff piece of parchment from it, after unfolding it she gasped at what was written on it.
“Poor Setrul. I tried to get his eye out with a fork but it popped. Check in the mess hall, under the table. I used a spoon!”
Also was a list of co-ordinates which Latona worked out to somewhere on the lower level.
“It’s a school.” Tenebrous said in her mind.
“A school?”
That seemed strange and at this time of night it would be empty. It was probably a trap….If it wasn’t a joke….or a dream…Either was fine…
Latona reached out with her powers to find Setrul. And was horrified to discover she couldn’t find him anywhere…He was nowhere, not in the ATC at least. And he couldn’t have been killed like that could he?...How he managed to leave the ATC without her or at least another pilot. Surely someone would have noticed him trying to leave…
If Setrul had fallen victim to the one who had called Latona then that meant Nika was now in danger as well. Reaching out with her powers again she was relieved to discover that Nika was still there. For the moment he was safe.
She re-read the letter a couple more times and it seemed a clue had been left for her in the unusual location. As much as she liked games, she was not in the mood for one right now.
[center:1akgo027]* * * * *[/center:1akgo027]
It didn’t take Latona long reach the school because of her wings. And she was very aware that she could be walking into a trap but she would rather spring it and see what she was dealing with than hiding and staying in the dark. She had to figure out what was going on. She had evidence now but was thinking she should have been careful what she wished for. Not that she would ever wish her candidates dead.
The building was very grotty and dark and everything seemed to creak around her. She would have to keep her wits about her, the psycho was probably here.
Once she reached the mess hall she decided that looking under each of the tables in turn would be a slow process. So instead she simply lifted all of them into the air with telekinesis. Then all she had to do was walk underneath and look up. She soon found what she was looking for; an eyeball with a brown iris and a note stuffed partially inside. She pulled it down with telekinesis again and put the tables back on the ground.
Even if was Setrul’s eye there was still a small chance he was alive. But if he was, he was almost certainly TRIM bound once the grace period was up. Both scenarios were not very pleasant. And she was partly to blame if something had happened to him. She should have done more to make sure her candidates were safe. It wasn’t fair that they were being targeted because someone was after her but they were her responsibility and she might have failed one of them.
She pulled the note out carefully, on it were written only two words, “Janitor Closet”.
She walked there cautiously, running there with the chance of the enemy appearing at enemy minute was a good way to get killed. When she reached the janitor closet she stood to the side of the door and opened it with telekinesis. Nothing jumped out so she warily looked inside. As she glanced along the shelves of cleaning supplies she couldn’t see anything out of the ordinary. Not until she looked down on the floor anyway. Arranged neatly to form the word “Rooftop” were human fingers, cut into several pieces.
Next, Latona started off towards the roof. This was one fucked up scavenger hunt and she was not having fun. Far from it, and she was starting to worry just what she’d find when she ‘won’. She would not be beaten; even if they were a psychic she would make whoever was toying with her and her candidates, pay. They would regret the day they ever messed with her. And though it was looking less and less likely this was a prank, if it was, the prankster was getting his junk ripped off at the very least.
When she reached the rooftop she found four bones lying on the floor, two tibias and two femurs. Carved into one was ‘bathroom’, another ‘go to the’, another ‘staff’ and another ‘private’. Frustrated she arranged them so they read ‘go to the private staff bathroom’.
From what she could gather so far Setrul was eyeless and leg-boneless. What exactly had the psychopath done? She sincerely hoped there weren’t any more disturbing clues but she didn’t want to find a corpse either.
Impatient now and starting to panic slightly, Latona didn’t even bother to take the stairs to the bottom instead she simply jumped down and used her telekinesis to stop herself before she hit the ground since there wasn’t enough room to use her wings in the small stairwell. She then headed towards the staff bathrooms which were close to the entrance. Why couldn’t they have told her that in the first place instead of making her run all over the ATC? Because they were sadistic and liked screwing with her.
Again she used telekinesis to open the door and peered inside.
“Shit!”
Inside was a body.
A very mutilated body.
It was hard to tell just exactly whose it was, the face was unrecognisable. There was no skin on it at all just muscles, which had been tacked back into a grotesque smile and the two front teeth were missing. The eyelids were sunken in with no eyes behind them.
The body was hanging spread eagled in one of the stalls and the limbs were flat and boneless as was the torso except for a bulging box-like area around the heart. And despite all that had been done to the corpse, there was no blood in sight.
Latona couldn’t tell for sure due to the condition of the body who it had been in life but their identification chip might still be intact. She searched the body with her powers and was disheartened to discover the chip was missing. The body could be anyone…but why lead her here if it was just some random person…It had to be him…
