บท 2: The Cornerstone (Narrated by Abel Lee)
The goddess stared at me with her gypsum eyes. Like other parts of her body, the corners of her eyes were adorned with spider's webs. The first time I saw her, I thought she was only an ordinary Hellenic-styled statue. However, when I paid more attention, I noticed that she was the goddess in the story I used to hear when I was a little kid.
"I've never thought the story was real," I whispered, still admiring the beautiful face of the goddess that was clouded by anger and to her long index finger which she pointed toward something, or someone.
Alexa turned her head, frowned. "What was?"
I pointed toward the goddess. "Her..."
Alexa's pair of blue-sky eyes shed confusion whilst she frowned even more.
"The story about this goddess," I explained. "She had three children from two husbands. The eldest was born from an immortal husband, and the younger twins from a mortal man."
"And you recognized the goddess from...?"
Seeing that Alexa seemed interested to hear the full-story, I dragged her closer to the statue. I pointed the goddess' hand.
"This pose was taken from the scene when the goddess put curse to her first and second son who accidentally killed their youngest brother. On that same moment, she also cast curse to the trickster deity who gave witchcraft to her second son and tricked the youngest to sacrifice himself in order to stop his brothers from fighting. I've heard about the story when I was a kid."
Alexa gave me a stern look. Her blue eyes locked on me, but with different intention as they were before. She brushed off a strand of her chin-long, straight red hair from her temple and put her hand on my shoulder. The bony yet strong hand of hers pushed me down until I bent my knee to level my height with her petite body. Her thin red lips formed a bow, which both ends nearly touched her dimpled chin.
I could only grin.
"Listen, Abel Lee...," she said. "The story, as good as it is, is a myth. Myth is equivalent with none-that-it-matter with our business here! If you do have some leisure to sightseeing and observing statues at this so-called museum, it would be better if you turn on your 'radar vision' and start to scan this place. Then, please..., please find that culprit Balin so we can return to HQ as soon as possible..."
"You said you wanted to know," I protested, but caved in for her plea.
I turned on my so-called 'radar vision'. I saw my own reflection on a silver shield of a medieval warrior statue, witnessing how my iris colour changed from black to silver with specks of green.
Please do not get shocked with this slight change. This was how my power work. To be honest, Alexa and I were not ordinary humans. We called ourselves Esper. We possessed supernatural or ESP power, to be exact. Alexa, for example, was an Animorpher. She could transform into any kind of animal shape, like any kind. In one transformation, she could morph different parts of her body into different kind of animals' anatomy. There was this one time when she morphed into a buffalo with a rhino body, yet had claws of a lion and a bear. Oh, did I mention about the gator's tail to complete her transformation?
I had had always think that she was a genius.
I, myself, had this 'radar vision'. Its function was more or less similar with the combination of infrared and thermal vision. The difference, however, I did not use it to have visual in darkness, but to see the 'other' sphere of this world. Well, maybe similar with spiritual world, but it wasn't packed with ghosts or spirits. Ordinary men might not realize that they were sharing their existence with creatures called 'Balin', a zombie-like creature. There were ordinary people who were not born with natural super-power such as ours, but were able to master alchemy and witchcrafts. They were sorcerers. Such kind of people were whom we deemed responsible for the creation of these so-called Balins.
History had always tracked record of some humans who tried to play god. After millennia of failure inventing technologies to create human or to properly clone one, some maniacs turned their attention to the alchemy and witchcraft. Eventually, a decade ago, one of them managed to create this Balin.
I had never witnessed the creation of Balin (which I preferred to call 'it' as it), but from the textbooks I read during my study at the Esper academy, I knew that a sorcerer could create a Balin by preserving a dead body which heart they replaced with crystal. This crystal was the crucial element. It wasn't your ordinary crystal, but a crystallized stone created from their magic power and knowledge of alchemy. Each crystal was crystallized using different methods, thus made each Balin unique. These Balins also possessed artificial intelligent, came from combination of the old memory of their past lifetime and additional intelligent infused by their 'creator'. Apparently, the crystal planted inside these Balins' body was not merely useful to make them came to life, but also to relive their brain cells.
Each sorcerer seemed eager to create the strongest and the most 'humanized' Balin. The stronger a sorcerer could be, the stronger super-power their Balin would possess, and their Balin might be hard to be differentiated from a normal living human.
However, there was no single Balin that managed to fool my radar-vision. This vision could detect the golden aura that was normally enveloping a sorcerer and which also radiating from the Balin's crystal. With that, I could tell-apart which is what. If their creator was strong enough, usually that aura would be weaker and clouded by yellowish (or bluish) aura that was normally surrounding ordinary human. Nevertheless, none could fool my vision. Even if it were only a tiny speck of gold, I would detect it out.
Before I continue, I thought it would be best to first explain about my and Alexa's line of work. We were partners in a task force called EOPID (abbreviation for Extra-Ordinary Phenomena Investigation Department). This secret task force was established by Alpha Law, the world number one conglomerate and businessman. He and his family were also like us, Espers, but they would only reveal the fact to the EOPID members. The world only acknowledged Alpha Law as a successful businessman that had wide-range of business network starting from home utilities to technologies and weaponry.
Alpha Law decided to establish this EOPID when a decade ago, a Balin was found dead next to his best friend's daughter. When the M.E. cut him open, he found himself looking at one already long-dead human remains with a piece of rock stuffed in his chest. After conducting series of investigation, Alpha Law finally discovered fact about these Balins. He discovered numbers of unexplained phenomena, which victimized many of civilians, were in-fact the doing of the Balins. The Law family had always been a guardian for Esper community, such as giving shelter to the abandoned Esper children, or to help them schooling their power. Therefore, Alpha Law decided to train some of these Espers as agents to hunt, capture, and/or kill any Balin. EOPID also had authority to track down any sorcerers that creating chaos or terror to civilians and to take any necessary measure in order to protect the civvies.
So far, EOPID had ten field agents and four technicians. The field agents, like Alexa and I, had to always be ready to go to any part of the world from our HQ. The said HQ itself was located at the basement of Law Inc. building in J City. Such as today, four hours ago I was leisurely sitting on my chair at HQ, sipping my coffee, minding my own business, before five minutes later my beloved boss, Brilliant Law (who was also happened to be the only daughter of Alpha Law), warped me and Alexa to an old castle served as museum for locals, that was located somewhere in remote area of Scotland.
Report said that there were two mysterious deaths in three months. According to Brenna, one of the EOPID technicians whose duty was to search such cases, the first body was a young man. Said young man was a John Doe. He was found dead and attached to one part of the castle walls, only from top part of his head to his waist. The rest of his body had transformed into creeping plant that had crept and covering the whole wall. The case soon became phenomenon and attracted many of scientific authorities as well as tourists, in and out the Great Britain. Due to the fame of the body which raised the locals' income from tourism, under the pretence of investigation in the process, no one was care enough to give the said man a proper burial.
The second body was found a month ago. This time, all villagers recognized her as the village chief's daughter. The upper part of the said young woman was bound by vines to the water fountain at the village square. Her death broke the chief's heart. He, then, finally realized that dead bodies were not exactly a healthy tourism attraction. He immediately took down his daughter's body and contacted law authorities in London to investigate the two cases.
Scotland Yard sent down their investigators to investigate said cases for three weeks, before they reluctantly gave up and decided that the phenomena were beyond their capabilities. Furthermore, England's top M.E. in London could not determine the cause of death of the two bodies. Miss B, aka Brilliant Law, agreed with Brenna that the two deaths must had been caused by Balin. Therefore, she dispatched Alexa and I to this dreaded place ASAP. We were dispatched using a warp machine created by Miss B herself. The said machine could transport object(s) through space and dimension, like a sorcerer's portal. The machine enabled us to arrive here in matter of seconds, around three to four hours ago. Pretending as a couple of tourists, we strolled around the village to gather information and 'scanning' with my vision. The information finally led us to this castle, where the first body was found. We were suspecting that the Balin might have been one of the museum workers. Still disguising as tourists, we then took a tour around the castle.
According to the pamphlet in my hand, this castle was once the residence of an eccentric Scottish nobleman. He loved antiques and old artefacts, to the extent that he devoted his life and almost all of his fortunes to collect said stuffs. At the end, the nobleman died a poor man with no living relatives. His castle and collections were ended to be given away for public display as museum. The museum was originally expected to raise the village income. However, I was quite pessimistic about that. The museum hardly had any visitor. Besides us, there were only three to five other tourists. The artefacts displayed here were in poor condition, and (as far as I could say) had no significant historical values.
We didn't find anything inside the museum. Moreover, my sensitive nose was allergic to dust. That was why, after a good half an hour sauntering inside the museum, I dragged Alexa to stroll around the outer parts of the complex. There was a small forestry next to the castle, which often used for camping site. At the back of the complex, there was a cluster of stone houses. I was guessing that these houses were used to serve as the housing for servants. In front of these houses, some statues were recklessly piled in rows. One of them was that goddess' statue. Judging from their appearances, they were initially the ex-occupants of the museum.
"That room is the curators' office," one soft voice stopped our steps, "Visitors are not allowed to enter."
We turned our head and I shut off my radar vision to have a good look of the speaker. This was one of my vision's weaknesses. When I turned it on, I would not be able to see my surroundings in their normal state. Everything just turned into clusters of colours, like when one was using thermal vision. I noticed that the speaker was a skinny boy with thick-frame spectacles. He seemed in the same age with Alexa, around 17 to 18 years old. His pale face was adorned with speckles and he had light brown hair that brought out his light-green eye colour. The boy was watching us with nervous glance, his slender fingers clenching and relaxing in unnerving rhythm. After I satisfied observing him, I turned on my vision once more, only to find something that made me grin in glee.
"Your eyes...," the boy stuttered when he saw the change on my eyes colour.
Alexa sighed, "See Abel, that's why I keep telling you to wear your shades, so no one would notice the change..."
"Oh please, who would in their right mind wear sunglasses in such foggy weather?! Moreover, its best he saw my silver eyes," I smirked to the boy, "'Because this pair of eyes will be his last memory before death embraces him for the second time."
Alexa fixated her gaze to the boy now, a mischievous smirk breached her face.
"Well..., well..., how lucky are we, to be able to catch a big fish without any bait...?" She said with glint of thrill flashing in her blue eyes.
The boy's body stiffened, before he suddenly ran into the forest near the castle.
"After him!!" I let out a command that was promptly executed by Alexa, even before I shut my mouth.
Alexa took off her clothes and revealed her special suit which she always wore beneath her 'normal' clothes. Alexa's slender body vibrated for seconds before her white legs turned into yellow colours blotted with black dots, followed by transformations on her torso, hands, and finally her red head. In matter or seconds, my cute, yet sassy partner had completed her transformation as a cheetah, picking up her running speed and dashed farther in front of me. I forced myself to chase the four legs of cheetah that could outrun a car. Fumbling, I stopped a couple of time to pick up Alexa's strayed clothing, to make sure she would still have something to wear when she changed back. Well, Miss B actually had made a sort of body suit for Alexa to wear, so she would not have to be completely naked when she transformed back. With her techno-craft power (which was a power to create new or modify old technologies), Miss B had made sure that Alexa's black suit could adjust any transformation she would make and also to duplicate the colour of the animals she would morphed into.
After a few minutes, I had lost track of them. I stopped in front of a big tree, catching my breath, while casting my eyes to the surroundings, in case my partner left me some signs. After some minutes passed, I finally saw disturbed grasses and faint track of a cheetah's foot, not far from where I stood. I was about to follow the trail when suddenly, I lost control of my feet. Before I realized what had happened, I had been hung and bounded on the trunk of the tree where I was resting under, seconds ago.
I tried to comprehend what was happening when I realized that I was bounded by creeping plants.
"Who...are...you?" A voice hissed from the top of the tree. It was a gravelly voice that could raise the soft hairs on the back of your neck. The voice was unpleasant and my body was shivering in their own accord upon hearing the voice.
I fixed my gaze and saw that the voice was coming from the museum-boy's mouth (or whom I should call as Balin). I had no idea that he had been watching me all this time. The boy's fair skin had been replaced with wrinkled blackish skin, as black as charcoal. He was like a freshly dug bog body after centuries of mummification process at the bottom of ancient bog. Yet, different with the bog bodies, his black skin didn't shrink into his bones, but bulging out over the newly grown stiff muscles. His clawed fingers and toes dug deep into the bark, giving him secure grip for hanging upside-down on the tree. The creature's blood-red eyes shining devilishly, shooting loathing gaze toward me.
"Animal indeed has animal-sized brain," I cursed Alexa, "How could she not even realize that she had lost her prey?!"
"Whom did you curse?!!"
I craned my head so high to see below.
"Alexa~~!!" I couldn't be happier to see that girl. I pointed the Balin and gave her a grin, "I was cursing it..."
Alexa raked her gaze at me with disdain. She had transformed her head back to her original human head, but still maintaining her rhino-skin, paws of tigers and four legs of horse's transformation.
"You're pretty...," I grinned and she sneered.
"WHO THE HELL ARE YOU????!!!"
Uh-oh, apparently the Balin's patience had reached its limit.
The creature had decided not to wait for our answers and started to use its power to animate a tree. A giant tree next to us started to wave around its huge branches to attack Alexa. Alexa jumped side-ways with her horse's legs and held back the branches attack with her claws. The branches broke into pieces.
"Hey, be more careful, don't hurt the tree!!" I panicked. "Global warming!!"
"Shut up!! It will be faster if you help to kill it, you know?!" Alexa yelled back before morphed her head to one of a bull. Apparently, she was trying to horn down the tree to the ground.
The Balin jumped and crawled on top of me. I noticed that the boy's originally white cheeks had been drawn back, almost touching his now-pointed ears, to give place for huge fangs and shark-like teeth. The skinny body of the boy had now packed with stiff muscles and his brown hair had all fallen, giving place for thickened skull like that of a Pachycephalosaurus' bone head.
"S-stay away…!" I tilted or cocked my head to maintain distance from its filthy face whenever it tried to approach me. I had been an EOPID agent for four years and fought many kinds of Balin on the process. However, still, to see a Balin's face up-close would never be my favourite choice.
"A-alexaaa…!"
Alexa ignored me completely. She was still busy with her tree. The Balin was also disregarding my plea, simply kept approaching me. I felt the nerve system and cells in my hips and feet were thumping as if they were eager to find its new form, and to dissolve into the tree where I hung. Now I could tell for sure that this creature had been given the power to use or animate plants, including changing a human into one.
"You think you're great, aren't you?" I hissed. I was furious! "Do you think you are that invisible with this power, huh~?!"
I was focusing all of my power toward each cell and nerve inside my body. The Balin was initially still smiling viciously to me, but now it wore bewilderment on its face. I was the only one who was laughing now. I felt each cell and organ inside my body stiffened, followed by my skin that became as hard as metals and it started to glow. In matter of seconds, my body had been covered by metals layer, on the outside, as well as in the inside. I ripped the darn plants that bind me just before and stretched my hand as fast as I could to throw a bone-breaking punch to the Balin.
The creature was not ready. It was still shocked witnessing my transformation. My fist made a loud bang when it hit the Balin in the stomach and send him flying. Another loud 'bam' echoed on the forest when the creature crashed into a tree. I was ready to blow another punch when I noticed, from the corner of my eyes, a glimpse of a chimera's shadow had bolted forward to attack the Balin. It sank its teeth on the Balin's neck and tore the head apart from the rest of the Balin's body.
"They always taste bitter," Alexa morphed back to her petite body. She spat with a disgusted face.
"I'll ask Miss B to include that in the textbook of Balin 101 since it was only you who ever tasted it. Don't you feel sick? It was a corpse, nonetheless. A fucking human corpse..."
Alexa threw me a pointed look. "I don't have to bite him if you kill him faster, Ironman!"
"I was about to kill him with another blow if only you didn't interfere!"
"Why didn't you use your power earlier?"
I glanced over to any part of my body that I could see. I was still a giant metal creature from top to toe. I shrugged.
"Lazy..."
Alexa's eye-brows shot up into her hairlines. She said nothing but started to collect her clothes. She put them on quickly and without another word she started to swing her legs to the museum's direction. I immediately panicked and tried to stop her.
"Lex..., Lex..., please don't walk out just yet. You know that I need ten more minutes before my power wear off and I could change back. Please wait, OK...?"
And..., there you go. Beside the 'radar vision', I had this other ability to control and/or manipulate five elements. The said five elements were fire, water, wood, metal and earth. The concept of these five elements was originated from Taoism. The Tao adherents believed that this universe and everything in it was established based on these five core-elements. The five elements could strengthen each other or weaken one another. In every single beat of life, the five elements had to be balance. The lack of or the profuse of one element in comparison with the others would create imbalance that could lead to disharmony of the nature. Human's body, in principality, was also established from the harmonic coordination between these five elements. Once any imbalance of element occurred in one's body, then illness would soon be materialized.
However, although each human was said to have these five elements, there must had been one that was dominant to reign over their physic, especially in sorcery. The dominant element that was reigning over a sorcerer from the moment they were born would lay foundation for their mastery of magic. A sorcerer could not master any magic that have clashed element with their natural element. For example, a sorcerer that was born under water element would not be able to master fire element-based magic. As for my power, it allowed me to use one of the five elements to counter the enemy's dominant element. My 'vision' could help me to read my enemy's element, which was usually shown in their aura, then using its polar element to counter it. For example, if my enemy had fire element, I would simply use water element to neutralize it.
Sadly, different with Alexa's power, I could only use my power once a day, an element a day and only for a short 15minutes time limit. If I forced myself to use more than one element and/or more than 15 minutes, then (someone said), my internal organs would explode and I would die due to internal bleedings. Well, at least that was what being explained to me by the woman who raised me. I had never tried it myself. It was always better to be safe than sorry, right?
Alexa stuck out her tongue, pushed me away, as she walked approaching the Balin's corpse. As it returned dead, the Balin changed back into its human form. The skinny body of the boy laid stiff not far from us, while his severed head had also changed back to its original form, rolling next to my feet. I squatted down and gazed upon the now blank, green eyes. He was so young and looked so naïve. I bet he would've never imagined that someone would raise him back from death and turned him into a monster.
"Lex, lend me your connector," said I without turning my head since my petite partner was busy using her wolf claw to rip open the Balin's chest and dig out its crystal heart. I tried my best to censor that memory out of my mind. I still needed my beauty sleep after all this, for goodness sake!
Alexa threw her connector with a splash of the Balin's blackish blood. The thing was not bigger than 5-inches and looked like your everyday smartphone, black and sleek. Now, the corners of the glassy monitor were spoiled with the Balin's black blood, sticky and filthy. I was so grateful to have strong stomach. Swallowing down the disgust, I wiped the blood off with a fallen leaf.
"Bren," I called when a face showed up on the screen.
Brenna was a beautiful woman of Spanish and Javanese mixed-bloods descend. She had gorgeous tanned skin like the seductive colour of sweet chocolate milk. Her skin colour was a great combination for her bright, champagne-coloured eyes. As always, she braided her wavy, raven hair to the back, showing off her exotic, heart-shaped face. She also had a pair of dimples on both cheek, which clearly visible whenever she smiled. At that moment, her plump red lips were forming a sweet smile that lit up her beautiful face.
"Abel," she returned the greetings, "I thought you would never contact me and updating your situation. Miss B is unpleased you know?"
The name promptly made me cast my eyes to Brenna's surroundings, over her shoulders, looking for a glimpse of that scary boss of ours' shadow. However, I could only catch a sight of the free-duty field agents who were leisurely sitting and chatting around the vicinity. There was no sign of the boss anywhere.
Brenna giggled. "Just kidding. She went to attend a conference since the two of you being dispatched, and not yet return."
I felt relieved and sighed. I gave the woman a piercing glance for her prank, made her giggle once more.
"Bren, could you please find this kid's identity?" I pulled the Balin's head and shoved it in front of the screen, warranted a shriek of disgust from Brenna.
"Abel, take that head away!"
"Are you done scanning?" Revenge indeed was sweet. Brenna's cheeks flushed, clearly irritated by my prank. I could only grin and put up innocent face.
"Done, I've found his identification. I'll send it to you."
Brenna was a Brain, a kind of Esper who was born with high intelligentsia and able to manipulate any kind of technology. In Brenna's case, she could type programs and input commands to the computer merely with her mind. As I predicted, she could find information that I needed effortlessly. Alexa's connector let out a sound of 'ping' twice, giving cue of incoming messages. Brenna herself had severed the connection.
"Jonathan Cowell, born January 2nd, 1992, died July 25th, 2012. He died four years ago. He was from Edinburgh, and took History major at Edinburgh Uni. Hmm…, cause of death…, oh, traffic accident."
"No sign of fatality on his body," Alexa interrupted. She cleansed her hands (heaven knows what she used to do that), and peeked through my shoulder.
"What did you say?"
"There's no sign of accident on his body."
I let out a long sigh. In my book, that could only have one meaning.
"What?" She asked.
"Her master healed him first Lex, then changed him into Balin."
"So?"
"Have you ever seen any Balin that died from an automobile accident yet possessing a flawless corpse as if the accident never took place?"
"This is the first one, I guess."
"Right, why do you think it could be that way?"
"His master is a perfectionist?"
I resisted the urge to slap this petite girl on the head. I sincerely interested to conduct research on how far the type of certain super power could influence the index number of its user's intelligentsia.
"Have you read the manual about alchemy, which was a compulsory reading at the beginning of our training?"
Alexa nodded.
"So, you should've know that to return a deformed corpse to its pristine condition would require significant amount of magic energy and complex alchemy formula. Therefore, in our case, the Balin's master had spent significant power and time to heal him. In my opinion, the most perfectionist wizard or sorcerer would refrain themselves from doing so. They would rather discard the disfigured body and find another, less flawed corpse."
Alexa cocked her head, boosting her brain cells to comprehend my information. Seconds later, she bugged her eyes as she came to understanding.
"The master had close relationship with the Balin!"
Finally.... "My hunch on this matter is also getting stronger because the Balin did possess remarkably powerful supernatural power. Have you retrieved the crystal?"
Alexa nodded. She stretched her arm to pass the stone to me. The crystal was diamond-shaped and reddish in colour. Alexa cleaned it up, but stains of Balin's blackish blood were quite persistent. I used my index finger and thumb to get a grip on the cleanest part of the stone, then scanned it with my vision carefully. Precisely as I thought, the stone was glowing out sparks of green aura, the sign of wood element that once infused in it.
"The residue of the element aura was still so bright, no wonder that Balin's magic was so strong. Call Brenna again Lex, ask her to send us any data that she could find about this Jonathan. If his master was someone close to him, then the master should've been his own family member or one of his closest acquaintances."
Alexa sighed, but she was executing my command. "So, does it mean we'll be staying long hours in Scotland until we could track down the master?"
I grinned, before pain came to strike my body like wave. I felt my skin pulsing when it was returning to its original state, followed by my internal organs. I had used my power for seventeen-bloody-years, yet never even once I could get used to the agony that it was often inflicted.
"Ooh..., good gracious...," I moaned.
"Are you alright, Abel?" Brenna asked. She wore a worried expression when she saw my agony through the connector.
"Don't mind him, he's always like that when he returned to his normal state. From weird to weirder," my partner smirked viciously.
I gave her a pointed look while holding the urge to slap this sharp-tongued girl on the head.
"The only living relative of Jonathan Cowell was his mother, and she lives in Edinburgh," Alexa informed me, eyes glued to her connector.
"We'll visit her later if we must. Firstly, let's find the head of this museum. He may know a thing or two about Jonathan. Open box password 5531, user name Lee, Abel."
I pointed my gadget, shaped like a wristband with stripe of silver plate on the middle, toward the Balin's carcass. "Upload and save," I inputted the command. My gadget was glowing, and seconds later, the Balin's corpse had been transformed into digital mosaic. Afterward, the mosaic was sucked into the silver plate on my gadget.
This gadget was the original creation of Miss B and one of the basic equipment that was compulsory to bring by the on-duty EOPID field agents. Miss B called the gadget Pandora Box 00-I. The box main function was to save any evidence we collected on the field. It could digitalize any material into algorithm, then saved it into digital data to be downloaded and re-constructed later. We were also using this device to store the Balin corpses temporarily, in order to bring them back to the HQ, so the Law's lab-technicians could conduct research on them.
"Do you think the head of the museum would know something?" Alexa tried to keep up with my walking pace. Apparently, without her cheetah legs, it was hard for her to keep up with my long legs.
"Well, that man was the one who employed Jonathan. So, I guess he could give us some information about the boy. It's worth a shot, right?"
"Or..., he may be his master!"
That was certainly something I would not like to expect. At least, not today. If that man was Jonathan's master, then we would definitely get engaged in another battle. Meanwhile, I was still powerless until the end of this day. After witnessing the masterpiece of Jonathan's master, I knew he must be a powerful sorcerer. Without my power to back her up, Alexa would have no chance against him.
"Hopefully not," I mumbled, as far as possible from the reach of Alexa's ears.
We walked toward the entrance. The sun was almost set at the horizon. The museum visitors had left the place one after another. When we finally got back there, the friendly old cashier lady had left her booth and started to close one part of the museum door.
"Ma'am, please wait!" I called for her attention. She looked at us, waiting. A friendly smile breached her seamed face, accentuating the crow's feet on the corner of her warm, brown eyes.
"Ma'am, do you know where we could find the head of the museum?"
"His office is at the back, just next to the curator's office," she answered quickly, then resumed closing the door.
Alexa literally dragged me to the pointed direction. I stared at my partner's red hairs that were dancing in the air, in resonance with her running pace. I wondered what made this petite girl so excited with the matter on hand. Was she that hungry for battle and adventures?
We arrived at the cluster of stone houses where we met Jonathan earlier. In front of us, there were two maroon doors. Since Jonathan had warned us before, we knew which one was the curator's office. We walked straight to the left door and knocked. I turned on my radar vision, preparing myself to scan the head of the museum. I had decided, if that man was a sorcerer, I would drag Alexa away from this place and persuade her to confront the said man tomorrow.
After three knocks, the door was opened with a creaking sound. An old man answered the door. I let out a relieved sigh when my vision did not show any indication that the old man was any other than a good 'ordinary' senior citizen. I turned off my vision and acknowledged that the museum head had a sharp figure, bald headed, and had a tall nose that reminded me of a bird's beak. His tall build started to bend forward. His beady eyes gazed at us bewildered.
"He's clean," I whispered to Alexa.
"Excuse me Sir, we would like to ask you about one of your employees named..."
"Whose face's like this," I cut Alexa's words and displayed my connector's monitor in front of his eyes. Jonathan's picture was on it.
The old man looked at the picture closely, so close until his nose was almost touching the digital screen.
"Oh, you mean Nathan Rourke! I have not seen him again after the lunch break, so he might've going home. Well, he isn't really employee here actually. He loves antiques and offers a helping hand around the museum. In return, I give him daily paycheque and allow him to read any book or parchment on the museum collection. He is a diligent and a good kid, so eager to learn. I hope I could make him a real employee here by next year. Are the two of you friends of his? He rarely mentions about his friends, nor had one visiting him here."
"Well, you could say that. We are, um..., his friends back in uni. We came from Edinburgh for holidays, and heard that Nathan is working here, so we came to pay him a visit. We also wanted to ask him to be our guide and show us around," I ended my bluff with one enchanting sweet smile that was normally very effective to persuade any senior citizen.
The smile indeed was effective, because the old man's face beamed and he practically sung out the information we needed.
"Actually, Nathan came here just a couple of years ago with his older brother Liam. However, the brothers love camping and hiking, so I think he would be an excellent tour guide for the two of you, especially if you plan to hike."
"Brother?" I threw a bemused look toward Alexa, who was re-checking the information in her connector and shaking her head not long after. "Do you know where they live? We may as well visit their house...," I enquired, sweet smile was still on display.
Half an hour later, we arrived at the said 'Rourke brother's resident'. The brothers' house was located about two hundred meters from the village square where they found the chief's daughter a month ago. The house was quite big for two occupants. It was two storeys high, brick-walled house with white door and windows frame, as well as its roof. The windows were tinted black, giving out a stricken contrast with the frames' colour and its dark orange-coloured brick walls. The house, like other houses on its surroundings, had no fence. The only sign for the address was a white mailbox erected near the gravel driveways.
"Is this the house?" My partner checked her notes again. She tiptoed and tried to peek inside.
"This is it," I nodded. "We'll visit them first thing tomorrow morning."
Alexa's red head turned to me, as the owner glared bemusedly.
"Why would we want to wait until tomorrow?!"
"Lex, my gut is telling me that this 'brother' of Jonathan in fact was his master."
"Therefore, let's catch him now!"
"Lex, I have no more power left for today. We'd seen Jonathan's power earlier. Do you think you could handle his master all by yourself?"
Alexa came in realization and relented.
"So, what? We rent a room and wait until tomorrow?"
I nodded. "Unless, you have another suggestion. No? OK. Let's stay here for a night and ask for Miss B's advice for this case. Hopefully she could send down other agents to help us."
"This is the first time you are willing to have other agents to help you beside me."
I did not respond to Alexa's jeer. Honestly, I had bad feelings for this case, but I preferred to keep it to myself. My only hope was I could bring the two of us back home safe and sound. If I had to shave off some of my pride in order to do so, hell..., so be it.
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