Bosgar Poirot stormed down the hall of his bedroom floor, making loud scuffing and stomping noises to the polish floorboards. His father had the gall to ground him again, especially when he had done nothing wrong this time. So maybe he had stayed out later than his curfew because of his nighttime activity with 669 at the Peony Soap House. For a former faceless henchman, the man had a weak body for pleasure: one that made him feel good all over when taking him in. He shook his head clear of his wanton thoughts and refocused his mind on his present situation as he stepped into his bedroom, feeling all his aches and pains.
“Ugh, I look like hell's demon.” He sighed when he examined his face in his dresser mirror. The 21-year-old man was fit, lean and good-looking with a stylish mop of brown hair, devilish blue eyes, and wicked lush lips. His body was an image of rich and immaculate lord in a soft navy suit with silver dragon pattern on the right sleeve and breast of his jacket and waistcoat. The symbol of the family's ties to the Demon Domination.
Sounds of commotion jolted him out of his self-centered thoughts. He saw a flurry of workers near his older brother's room. His eyes widened with pleasant surprise when he saw 669 talking to their head butler - Morton. The rigid, old man, was also issuing orders to the grunt workers, who were cleaning up a mess.
“669.” He called out to them.
669 stepped out of the group to greet him with a formal bow. “Milord. It's nice to see you again.”
“Ah, you don't have to be formal around me.” Bosgar patted his shoulder and trailed a tender finger near the man's ear, which stirred a blush to the man's cheeks.
But 669 surprised him when he stepped back and cordially informed him for his reason to be there. As the reason was for work, Bosgar accepted the henchman's business decorum. This side of 669 made him want the man more.
“It seems odd for you to fix a window. I don't picture you as a handyman,” he said to 669 and the others. He turned his attention to Morton. “Don't we have our own people for this small matter?”
“Milord, yes, but the Cannon Fodder 4Hire company were assigned to the task from the Shiya House Order.” Morton formally provided the reason with a low bow, showing an inkling of emotion on the matter.
“Really?” Bosgar gulped and looked at the broken window with a nod. If that was the case, there was no way this task would go to anyone else, since it had been assigned from their Grand Demon Overlord's upper management. A question nagged at his mind on why a broken window would be in their grand overlord's interest.
“How did the window break?”
Morton bowed again as he answered. “Your brother broke the window when he fell.”
669 observed Bosgar's expression when Morton had told him that Marcus Poirot was dead, and sighed. The man's shock was a genuine expression, which mirrored his own.
“Did you say fell out the window and died?” Bosgar was looking more disturbed. “Impossible. Even if he somehow fell out the window, which I doubt, he was an air mage. He could ease the fall.”
669 saw the young lord's distress and patted his shoulder with his condolences. “Apparently he had been drinking so much he barely could see his feet.”
He stopped his words when Bosgar flashed him an angry look. The man shook off his hand and stormed down the hallway to his bedroom, slamming the door behind him.
Morton sighed but didn't say anymore on the matter. He gave the team basic instructions, mostly to fix the window but not disturb the mess, as the Salem Royal Guard would return to examine the crime scene further.
“Don't worry, that's why I'm here, I guess.” Indigo chimed in with a chirpy manner. “I'll place a barrier around the mess so we can fix without issues.”
Eventually, the commotion leveled out so only 669, 789 and Indigo were in the hallway. It seems Morton had given the other workers instructions to stay out of their way. Indigo had used her air magic to place the mess in a semi-transparent stasis bubble.
789 frowned the whole time she was examining the window break. “Hey, sleazy, does this feel weird to you?”
669 huffed and snapped at her to stop calling him weird names. “If anyone is sleazy it's you. And yeah, the jagged shape of the glass is from a body being tossed out the window but even the crack and break is odd. How many body-toss out windows did we do in our time with our overlord.”
He trailed a gloved finger along one of the edges and noticed a thickness wider than the average window. Naturally, glass had to be fortified to withstand magical protection arrays. But this also meant to break a window was no easy feat. It would be like breaking a boulder: not impossible when using magic. It's likely why there was a disturbance to the protection formation.
“I don't understand. Even if you were that blind drunk, there's no way you could stumble so hard to break through the window and fall down.” Indigo frowned as she helped 669 reset a new pane of glass to the break so it looked seamless like all the other windows. All they needed to do was perform magic rites to reseal the protection formation.
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“Let's not think on it further. That kind of thinking is for the Salem Royal Guard.” 789 declared.
“I'm glad you decided to show us some respect rather than give us the run around.” A new voice entered the scene.
789 groaned when she saw the voice came from Emelia Rice, a second rank constable for the royal guard. Like all the royal guards, she wore her white soft body armor and knee-high white leather boots with an immaculate impression, and her silver clover officer's badge pinned smartly on her right breastplate area. Her long, auburn, ponytail hair swished at her back as she strolled toward them, with her sheathed longsword tapping against her hip. Small green eyes were narrowly staring at 789.
The woman had once chased 789, 777 and 669 around the region on another case when they were faceless henchmen. At that time, she was unaware of their Demon Domination affiliations, as they had presented themselves as Holy Order soldiers. How foolish she was to find out that her key suspects were undercover henchmen for their lord, and they had stolen the enemies gear to infiltrate a camp.
“As I recall, that was your fault for chasing after us.”
“You should have told me you were also sent by our overlord! I had to do in-house training for three months!”
“Constable Rice. Remember we're here for business.” An older man stepped onto the scene, wearing the same royal guard body armor uniform as Emelia.
The man was taller than all of them, with a trimmed wise beard and cool gray eyes.
“Detective Morse.” 669 cordially greeted the senior officer with a bow.
Detective Morse nodded with satisfaction as he looked over the barrier. “You protected the crime scene well. Thank you.”
“I don't understand. If you're still examining the scene, why are we fixing the window now?”
“The family are keen to ensure their property doesn't remain unprotected for long. So they need this window fixed.”
“Makes sense,” 789 said as she smoothed down the last bit of magic glue to seal the glass to the rest of the foundations.
“We'll go about the protection formation now,” Indigo said.
The three left the officers behind as the returned to the outside of the window. Morton had given them instructions on how to reset the protection array, with permissions from the family head. They could only do the resealing at midnight when the energies were more still and stable, so would set up everything beforehand and return to perform the ritual.
As they were clearing the path area and laying down round, tiger-eye, flag waystones (used to magically set boundary points), an odd sheen caught 669's eyes. He rummaged through the small bushes and dusted off dirt from a circular metal disc he found.
“Wait.” He gasped when something from the object activated his parasitic magic, to make black energy flow out of his hands and into the disc. He tried to drop the disc, but the he was glued to it by his magic.
“669!” 789 hurried to his side, seeing intense agony on his face, which was looking less perky and weak.
She went to pull the disc off him but was stopped by Indigo.
“Boss Sister. I don't know what he picked up, but it seems to carry a forbidden magic that absorbs virya out of a creature to weaken them.” Indigo began pulling at her ponytail: her wings fluttered frantically at a panicky pace as she rapidly thought on a way to safely pull that stinky mage out of the lock.
“What to do, what to do?!” She nervously chewed her nail, but 789 came up with an idea when she pulled a pill out of her hip utility pouch and tossed it at 669 head.
The pill was absorbed by the seal instead. 669 screamed when his body went flying across the yard from the instant explosion the pill absorption had caused. The troublesome metal disc dropped to the ground, unaffected by the explosion impact.
“You crazy henchman! Why bother saving me if you're gonna kill me anyway?!” 669 ranted and raged. Dusting off dirt from his clothes and moping about their wear and tear. His boyfriend would kill him if he saw his outfit's condition. It was just as well he didn't remember the man's name.
“Next time I will!” 789 huffed, but her eyes lingered on the metal disc where a symbol was being drawn on the surface.
“Silver lotus?” She gulped.
Their three heads were bowed over the small disc, uncertain what to do with it.
“Hmm. Another one.” Emelia said as she stepped up and pushed her head into the group to examine the disc. “I take it you didn't touch it?”
669 gulped and pulled away to hastily fix up his image.
“What is it?” 789 asked as they found themselves before the officers again.
Her eyes swelled when Detective Morse bent down to pick it up with a gloved hand. “Wait, don't touch it! The metal is laced with forbidden magic.”
She looked confused when he straightened up with the disc held innocently before him. “What is it?”
Detective Morse dropped it into a small pot, which had protection sigils painted on it and wrapped a paper talisman over the lid. “Something you don't need to worry about.”
He slipped the sealed pot into his satchel bag.
“Right.” 669 sighed, feeling drained. It had been a long day.
“Constable Rice, we need to make a report. This accident has just become a homicide. We'll return at midnight to observe the reformations.”
Emelia nodded. She gave them a bow before following Detective Morse down the path and out of the grounds.
“Homicide? Isn't that, like, what 669 is?” Indigo looked perplexed.
789 looked at the pixie wryly, “Dummy, homicide as in murder.”
Indigo still didn't get it, so 789 dropped further explanations.
“Let's head back once we report to that rigid butler. I'm tired.” 669 suggested.
They returned to the company's headquarters.