Angel settles into a booth in the back corner of the Lighthouse with a heavy sigh. They sip their pint of non-alcoholic beer, waiting for Wild to arrive.
After an hour of asking customers milling around the bar, along with thorough questioning of both the bartender and the owner, no one recognized the picture of Amy.
The bar has filled up considerably since they’ve entered; the music is a little louder and the lights a little lower. The neon sign in the window flickers on. It’s “2 for 1” shot night, although Angel doesn’t participate.
When Wild arrives, he’s not alone. A ginger-haired cat-sìth sidles up to the booth, carrying two pints of beer. Wild introduces Angel to Ivo with a sheepish smile, a faint blush on his cheeks. He stumbles over the word “friend” but Angel moves on as if it hadn’t happened.
“Nice to meet you,” Angel says. “Thanks for taking over, Wild. I think it would be helpful to ask a few more patrons about Amy.”
“Yeah, no problem. We have some interesting updates about the portal.” Wild’s eyes slide over to Ivo. “The analysis is complete, but I don’t know what it tells us.”
“It was a really interesting sample if I’m being honest,” says Ivo. “On the surface, it was your typical portal residue. We ran the normal tests, looking for origin signatures. The traces of sulfur were unusually low, though, so we ran a few more diagnostic tests, broadening our parameters to include markers outside of documented demon signatures.”
Ivo pauses to take a sip of his beer. “We didn’t have expectations, but honestly, we didn’t expect to find what we did, which was a particular chemical composition usually seen with witch magic.”
“Witches can’t cast portals,” Angel says immediately.
Ivo nods. “Exactly. So I ran it again. Four times. The same results.”
“Can you compare it to the portal analysis from when Hazel disappeared?”
Ivo nods, taking a sip of his beer again. “Already did. It’s a match.”
“So the same way that Hazel disappeared, is the same way Amy’s body made it into Harvest’s apartment.”
“Are you sure witches can’t cast portals?” asks Wild.
“Reasonably certain,” answers Angel. “But you know what witches can do?”
“Drink me under the table?”
“Indeed.”
Angel doesn’t make good on their promise, however, and, after finishing their pint, they leave Wild and Ivo in favor of returning to the office. They did have a brief idea of going home—dropping off Amy’s purse and leaving it until morning—but the thought of their studio loft, walls lined with unpacked boxes, was far less appealing.
When Angel arrives at the Bureau, the tall brick building looks surprisingly warm and welcoming against the assembling clouds in the sky above. It feels more like a lighthouse than the one Angel has just left.
Entering the building always comes with a rush of mischief, a pressing spell that reaches out to search for their credentials in their blood, in as much as it is looking for the badge tucked safely in their bag.
Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.
At their desk, Angel removes the purse from the evidence bag, hands covered in gloves as they carefully sort through the items inside.
Amy’s purse is made of black fake leather that is worn at the corners, with bits of material flaking off as they open it. Inside, there is a small clutch filled with makeup and a compact mirror. A few hair ties and bobby pins congregate at the bottom.
There is a receipt for Sandy Shores, showing that Amy purchased a bottle of water the day before she died. On the back of the receipt is a drawing of a woman’s profile and a few doodles of birds doing various activities: seagulls diving down into a wavy ocean, pigeons strutting down the sidewalk.
There is an inside zipper that Angel slowly pulls back, revealing another bobby pin and two cherry pits. Although these are not likely to be vital evidence, Angel logs them on the computer just the same.
When the purse is empty, Angel tips it upside down to make sure nothing is hiding in the corners, and then runs their hand along the inside, checking for anything sewn into the lining.
Satisfied that the purse contains nothing more, they return everything to the evidence bag and write a six-digit case code on the label. On the way out, they will hand the bag over to the overly familiar, enthusiastic demon who works the evening shift in the evidence room.
Angel puts off the interaction for a few minutes longer, answering emails and updating their calendar while considering what color to dye their hair next.
Eventually, even their bare, poorly lit studio apartment begins to sound appealing in the face of busy work. With a sigh, Angel turns off their computer and heads home.
----------------------------------------
As Harvest and Quinn make their way back to the docks, the sunlight dancing across the water suddenly disappears. Harvest looks to the horizon, seeing nothing but a smudge of darkness.
She can smell the anticipation of rain in the air now, mingling with the sea and a hint of smoke from a fire somewhere on the other side of the island. The air is a heavy plum, disturbed only by white electricity gathering above them.
Lottie has arranged transportation for the evidence they’ve collected from Amy’s bedroom, including a photograph of Amy and another woman whom the parents have tentatively identified as Beth.
Quinn had begun losing his patience with them, his calm, understanding demeanor slipping—so much so that when he showed them the wand, he did so with little grace and a fair bit of harshness, as if they had purposefully lied about Amy’s abilities.
They were baffled by the wand, which was supposed to be in a box in the attic. When Quinn told them he found it under Amy’s pillow, Flora broke down in tears. When they left, Flora and John were clutching onto each other like the sole survivors of a shipwreck.
Dr. Burrow’s tincture (which Harvest has stashed in her bag) has lessened the pain in her neck, and Harvest feels that she might be able to forgo the bandage soon. Yet even as her neck heals, her arm still throbs. She takes a peek under her sleeve to see that her wrist is red, the rash circling her like a bracelet.
With a grimace, she slides her sleeve back down, deciding instead to focus on getting back to Ronan’s, where he will make dinner and put on a silly movie while she drifts to sleep on the couch.
It’s been nice to spend so much time with him, she thinks as she follows Quinn back to the ferry. The remains of her relationship with Ezra are now a fine dust of ash, and she considers moving out of her apartment. Even though only her name is on the lease, Ezra moved in fairly early on and it’s hard not to consider it theirs.
Besides, the memory of finding a dead body in her bed will always somewhat sour the thought of her home. Maybe Ronan needs a roommate.
It isn’t until they reach the ferry that Harvest realizes the storm rolling in is bigger than it looks. The ferry is closed for the night, and the attendant is as unsympathetic to Quinn’s demands as he is to the badge Quinn keeps shoving in his face.
There is a back-and-forth that lasts ten minutes, while Harvest, pragmatically, looks up nearby hotels that have vacancies. She does briefly consider calling her father, but she looks at Quinn, with his sharp teeth and his smoldering amber eyes, imagines introducing him to Theodore Rosenbloom, and changes her mind. As a popular vacation spot, Ilton has quite a few hotels to choose from, and the fact that it is October—an off-season month—is in their favor.
If Quinn was annoyed when they arrived, he is irate now. She has a feeling that if she could see his aura, it would be as dark as the clouds that are now overhead.