McAnally's (The Community Pub) > Author Craft

Writers round table

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Anduriel:
“So Sarah, why are you here? Tell me you don’t think the vic could’ve done this to himself?” Frances taunted the ‘insurance’ lady.

She gave him a look that said You know why I’m here before actually saying:

“Vic?” her tone a little incredulous.

“Vic-tim, Sarah,” he let out a little sigh “Victim. That’s cop-talk for the bag of bones that used to be our…guy…that isn’t there any more!?”

Francis stalked over to a corner of the room where an outline of something had been taped. If that was supposed to be where the guy had died, whatever had killed him, didn’t leave him like much of a man…  or much of an anything really. The outline just looked like a large blob. Francis was still talking, he seemed a little bemused.

“Ms Carrolton, would you mind explaining why the body that the DSC specifically requested would stay on scene for 24hours, is no longer on my scene? You know there’s tests that need conducting while the body’s still on location.”

Why would an insurance lady have anything to do with the actual body?

“Detective Frances, surely you know the story about the early bird and the worm? I got my worm,” she said smugly “The tests have already been conducted, just not by you.”

For some crazy reason I can’t explain right now, I was starting to expect that our Ms Carrolton worked for an insurance company just about as much as I had passed my Interpol entrance exam. Can’t think why.

Kristine:
Sorry all.  NAIF was supposed to be the made up bad guy organization that the Interpol group is supposedly fighting - guess I didn't explain that very well
quote author=Kristine  date=1207806575
"...over the years we've built up stories about this...occult organization.  We called it N.A.I.F. and it's a well funded secret group of occult fanatics who are conjuring up evil with found ancient documents from other planes of existence. (the religious people like to believe Hell - so we let them.) They change normal people into werewolves or giant spiders or a host of other supernatural things that go bump in the night.  A group of 'experts' was recruited to fight these people.  We are a very shunned side, closet group that operates secretly within Interpol."..."We made up this group so that we wouldn't have to tell the governments of the world that we were fighting an uphill battle against extradimensional forces that will probably, eventually, way in the future... give the average Joe public citizens everywhere the power to manipulate arcane forces."

I suppose a NAIF unit would be like a Hate-Crimes Unit

--- Quote from: Anduriel link=topic=6230.msg198376#msg198376 --- For some crazy reason I can’t explain right now, I was starting to expect that our Ms Carrolton worked for an insurance company just about as much as I had passed my Interpol entrance exam. Can’t think why.

--- End quote ---

"Per the co-operation agreements between agencies, you will of course be sharing those test results and giving our experts access to that body." Frances smiled too sweetly.

Ms Carrolton returned the smile a little frostier, "We will be as co-operative as you would be in our place." she purred.

Frances nodded and turned back to where the body had been, dropping his surupy smile and grimaced at the floor.  "Either your crime scene guys are getting sloppy with the tape or this body was...uh..." he shook his head unable to find a word to describe the blood soked tape outline on the floor.

Despite their departmental anomosity Ms Carrolton answered, "The body was both ripped apart and desicated, like he had time to bleed while something sucked all the liquid life out of him."

She pointed under an end table, "there was an arm over there, and most of one foot under the coffee table."

I looked in the spots she pointed and and saw the sad little tape outlines of body parts.  When I looked up from spotting the one under the coffee table she was looking at me instead of where Frances, with a pair of surgical gloves he had pulled out of his pocket, was taking a sample on a big Q-tip of the blood and...something else, in the main body spot.

"Mr Capp are you just here to get the psychic vibe or are you going to do any acctual investigating?"

meg_evonne:
Fixed my post....  NAIF bad guys,  he's now with Interpol, Department of Special Cases.  DSC?  How's that sound?

Frances grunted from under the coffee table, "Leave the kid alone, Carrolton.  He's learning."

She gave me a look that said, "Amature".  Which was not called for.  Hey, I hadn't vomited at the sight of blood or the smell in the room.  I thought I was doing pretty well.

Edited to add posting
Working on my villains... Side bar:

Riding upon solar winds, the rocketing gas cloud, known by Joey as Cloudius Gaseous, slowed outside the reach of its home within a massive black hole.  It swirled, waiting for the right time to enter the event horizon.  A large galaxy slipped within and the sight was impressive, but the gas cloud was impatient to reach home.  While it waited, it turned its displeased thoughts to the turn of fortunes on Wildflower.  It needed to share this new information and obtain feedback on how to proceed. 

From its position well out from the entry, he could see the multiple colored strands of massive energy power that stretched outwards away from the black hole.  Each strand-stream was a single unit, providing crucial fuel to provide for the needs of their existence deep within the Black Hole.  In the beginning, gasses formed together, eventually gained sentience with a random blast of magical energy, and sought collective refuge from the blast of creation.  This black hole became their first home.  Anything can feed a black hole, but we had specific needs to exist, to grow, and finally to multiply.  We needed the energies tied to magic.  As our control grew, we were able to exhort power, strengthen the threads between the magic worlds, rearrange the galaxies that previously had drifted aimlessly into the black hole by gravity pull, selecting those with magic within to feed us.
 
Over a hundred threads now extended outwards, each with one as I, working to construct a strand-stream of systems that had magic potential.  All connected  and tied together by natural portals from one to the other.  We encouraged the magic, we blew a soft breath, and it would flourish.  Each strand-stream had several worlds (galaxies), like pearls on a necklace.  The closest were the most magically developed and those further out the least.  The strand-stream pulled ever closer to the black hole, feeding each galaxy with its magic ripened world into the food chain of our kind.  It was a delicate ballet of systems intertwining, approaching, and finally falling when their magic reached the maximum to add to our size, strength, and power.  Soon, we would be large enough for the Release of a new colony, the first since the beginning of time.  It would be soon.  Soon…

The gas cloud felt the excitement from its kind as the galaxy with its magic world within slipped into the gravity well.  Anxious to join the others, to share in the feasting, and the celebration, the gas cloud waited impatiently.  It felt such joy as finally it slipped into the gravity well and was drawn home at last.  It had been a long time, but inside the black hole time was of no matter.  Once home, it would discuss the problem concerning the Emperor, who had backed away from his obligations on the world called Wildflower. 

Within its home, the comfortable absolute blackness surrounded it and it rejoined the singleness of the Mesh.  It felt the waffling of its greater energy envelop it, refuel it, welcome it home.  The Mesh of the collective stretched just above and across the base of the black hole, acting as a filter—pulling the magic energy it needed, releasing the rest to its final fate.  The strand-stream gas cloud released its findings so that all parts would be able to provide input from their own experiences with the memories from other strand-streams.  Its thoughts intermingled with the Mesh collective.

“The Emperor lost the Wildflower world.”  In responce the Mesh wavered in anger.  “I dared not break with his orders without your guidance and I abandoned the world at his order.  The Emperor is unconcerned with the development.  He claims that he will simply by pass Wildflower AND Earth and move on to the new world being pulled into the strand-stream.”

The Mesh collective communicated back via undulations of its surface. “That will mean that the Wildflower will not be in full fruit when it is taken, nor will Earth.”

“Yes, but he is right that the New World is ripe for the taking.  It can easily be turned towards magic.  It is in the elementary beginnings—folk tales and legends are ripe on the world, no technology yet competes to close down the belief in such things.   They have just learned the powers of the winds that they believe come from the Gods.  If I had spent less time on the other worlds, I could have been on Earth to turn it to magic, but I lost valuable opportunities once machines began to take hold.  Magic faded from their lives and it will be a struggle to bring it back.”

Again the Mesh collective communicated back, “The people of Earth are stubborn, but they will learn.  They will be forced to learn.  Once the Emperor takes the New World, will he be strong enough to retake Wildflower and Earth?”

“Yes, I believe he will be.  If not, there are others that we can convince to aid us.  We can promise the same thing we offered the Emperor—the safety of his home world.”

“And you feel that there is time to accomplish all this, on all three worlds, in time to feed us for the Release?”

“The Emperor is arrogant but desperate to save his world.  I would have preferred to not abandon Wildflower, but there is a very good chance that he will succeed.  With the New World, he will have enough power.”

The collective’s Mesh slowed its movement with the news, “IF he is successful, we would have an unprecedented strand-stream of eight galaxies in one great Calling.”

There was stillness as the collective considered this unheard of phenomenon.  Then a slow fluttering built to match the excitement of the recent feast.  “The timing of so much magical energy is an unparalleled opportunity.  If we shifted our energy on pulling them close together and draw them in quickly, it would be enough to precipitate the Release.  Our kind will possess the power to multiply for the first time since the beginning.  Go back to the Emperor, help him take the New World, and then with the added power take back the Wildflower and Earth.  We will move the other strand-streams to coordinate the Calling of this single strand-stream with the Release.”

“May we multiply!” The Mesh collective rippled and repeated the thought across its surface in ever frantic movement until it expelled the original gas cloud in an outward stream of particles that easily escaped the gravity well.  On the outside, light years away from the Black Hole, it swirled in the brightness of the universe and missed the comforting absolute blackness, then it turned and, sailing again within the dark hole’s particle blast, it speed along the strand-stream until it reached the first galaxy.  It sailed past the many uninhabited worlds to its center where it paused outside the atmosphere of the Emperor’s Inner World.  Accustomed now to the brightness of the stars and galaxies compared to the absolute darkness of his own home, it looked outwards, away from his home, away from the Emperor’s world, and down the subtle colors of the strand-stream from the Inner World to the farthest galaxy that contained the New World.  “Yes,” it thought, “May we multiply!  And it will be I who makes it happen.”

Anduriel:
Meanwhile

Joey

Ok, so I’d done well with the whole not puking my guts out thing, but now they were expecting me to do real police work. In case you couldn’t guess; that’s something I haven’t done before. Ever. I didn’t know where to begin, I mean even with all the cop shows I watched; I was hardly crime scene investigation material…

And so I said the first words that came into my head:

“Actually Ms Carrolton, I am the psychic vibe,” I received a quizzical look from Frances “I’m DSC’s new psychic consultant.”

Big mistake.

If it was possible; Sarah Carrolton’s disapproving look deepened, until she looked like something resembling a bullfrog on ‘that time of the month’.

“Is that so?” She glanced at Detective Frances… I never did learn his first name; come to think of it “I didn’t think Interpol employed such means.”

I retorted with a most cunning:

“Uh…”

“Well Mr Capp, how about you give us all your professional opinion?”

Did I mention I’m really not psychic? It seemed I was however, kinda stupid. One of these days I was gonna learn to keep my mouth tightly shut. Seeing as this wasn’t ‘one of those days’; I just stood there looking stupid. Thankfully Frances came to my rescue:

“Ms Carrolton, if you’ve quite finished grilling the newest member of my staff, I think it’s time you left.”

“I certainly will n¬”

“Sarah, need I remind you that no matter who you represent unofficially, legally speaking you are just an insurance flunky, where as I am an officer with Interpol,” He fixed her with a milk-curdling stare “You leave when I say you leave. Unless you are waiting for an armed escort?”

If looks could kill; Frances would have exploded at that very moment. Ms Carrolton did not look pleased. She paused. As if contemplating whether to challenge Frances on this notion, but thought better of it.

“It is of no consequence. I have already completed my investigation.”

With that; she left.
“Finally, I thought she’d never get her fine ass out of here,” was all he had to say before standing up. “You fancy doing some actual work now? Tell me kid, you ever heard of a skin-walker?”

meg_evonne:
"The Dresden Files TV show had a skin walker.  Skins someone and then wears the body?  Impersonates the person?  Is what happened here?"

Frances nodded. 

"In that case, what did all the millionaires have in common? that would attract skin walkers?"

Frances smiled, "Thought you'd pick this up pretty quickly.  Good job, recruit.  That's what we have to figure out.  While we work towards that goal, let me give you some rudimentary rules about handling a crime scene."

I listened in as Frances started feeding me rules on how to handle the crime scene, showed me the foot prints in the blood, the dusted areas revealing fingerprints.  Let's just say that I got the Crib notes to Investigation 101.  As we headed out of the building, Wildflower began to hum.  Frances might know investigation scenes, but I had my own personal Wildflower alarm security system.  I hollared at Frances to get in the car and raced to the other side.  Frances' Camaro (if I'm wrong on car type--let me know!) might be rusted out and ready for the scrap yard or a serious restorer, but the engine hummed like a pro, spinning it's wheels and the car's tires as it sprang forward.  0 to 60 in seconds.

Trouble was--it wasn't quite fast enough.

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