"Paars, it's nice to see you here. I guess there is no one on graveyard duty tonight?" asked a man wearing a blue coat with a Police logo on it while offering his hand. He was short and had a friendly face.
"Groen, it feels weird to see you outside the station," said Paars while shaking Groen's hand, and then he added, "Wit and Geel are there doing the graveyard duty tonight. They should be enough to stop any stupid thieves,"
Groen then looked at the two mangled bodies on the ground and shook his head. It must have been a massacre.
"We're sure busy tonight," he said tiredly.
"So Rood and Oranje are dealing with the traffic accident case?" asked Paars curiously.
"Yes. For two things like this to happen on the same night. At least the crash was probably a pure accident. But we cannot be sure, that's why Oranje is over there," replied Groen.
Paars observed the bodies lying motionlessly on the ground carefully. It was a man and a woman, and both were not complete. The woman's left half showed signs of being chewed on by something with sharp teeth and there was a deep claw wound on her chest. The man's body cut into several pieces with blood all over the pieces.
"Didn't your group encounter a ghoul recently?" asked Paars meaningfully.
Groen also saw the teeth mark and knew why Paars asked the question.
"Yes. You also think it's the work of a ghoul?" replied Groen.
"It's highly possible, and I don't think the ghoul naturally appeared here. There must be a summoner, otherwise, it would have been much stronger and your group would have been in bigger trouble," said Paars analytically.
"You know more about supernatural creatures than me, so I'll trust your judgment. My expertise is controlling people," said Groen casually.
Paars crouched to see the blood splatters on the ground more closely and went into deep thought. There was bloodstain a distance from the dead bodies that didn't seem to belong to the victims. After a moment, he spoke.
"Someone took care of the ghoul, but he was injured in the process. He managed to kill the ghoul before running fleeing the scene. If the ghoul had won, there wouldn't have been any bodies left here," analyzed Paars.
"Can you use divination to find out who it was?" asked Groen.
"I'll try. Give me a minute," replied Paars shortly.
He reached into the briefcase that he was carrying and took out a medium-sized round mirror. The clean mirror reflected his image, showing a man with blonde hair and blue eyes. His youthful face sometimes made people misjudge his capabilities.
Paars slit his palm and smeared blood all over the mirror, making sure there was no gap left. With the blood on the mirror, he then concentrated and repeated a question in his mind.
'Who killed the ghoul here earlier tonight?'
The blood on the surface of the mirror slowly got absorbed into it and tried to form an image of what had happened. However, instead of an image, the blood turned into a red mist and evaporated.
"Didn't Rood say that he was also chasing after a Shroud?" he turned to Groen and asked.
Groen, who saw the failed attempt at divination, understood what happened.
"Yes. It means it's the same Shroud again that dealt with the ghoul..." concluded Groen, "unless there are several Shrouds hanging around here in Sloten,"
Paars shook his head and said, "The latter is very unlikely. I'm more inclined towards the first option."
"Can't we do a blood test? The Shroud left some of his blood here. Or can we find the medium they used and get rid of it?" asked Groen.
"Blood tests are useless against Contractbounds. Their blood is not the same as that of a normal human. As for the medium, unless you're the Shroud or their allies, you will not be able to see it," explained Paars.
Following the lead through that angle seemed fruitless, so Groen gave up and approached the cut-up body of the man.
"I don't think the ghoul did this or the Shroud. What do you think?" asked Groen.
"I'm sure you are right. Ghouls don't have the ability to make such clean cuts. Their sharp claws will leave a distinctive mark if used that way, while their teeth will just tear the flesh apart. But why do you think it wasn't the Shroud?" asked Paars curiously.
"This cut looks like it was made in anger, and unless the Shroud was really powerful that he could control the ghoul easily, he wouldn't have had the time to do it. And besides, we knew that he was wounded, so that scenario can be dismissed," said Groen analytically.
Paars looked at the man's body again and could see why Groen would think that way. He was cut into several pieces, something that only a maniac or an extremely angry person would do. Or both.
"So what do you think happened?" asked Paars as he turned to Groen.
"I think it is as you said, the ghoul appeared and attacked these two victims, and then the Shroud appeared and took care of it, but was injured in the process. He fleed the scene right away because he sensed something dangerous: the mastermind. They must have been angry that their summoned creature got killed," explained Groen. "But that's just my guesswork. We can't know for sure unless we find evidence,"
The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
Paars was amazed by his partner's analytic ability.
"I think your theory is the most likely to be the case," he then paused and looked at the chopped up man's body again and added, "Since the mastermind is not related to the Shroud, I think I might be able to use divination on them,"
Groen nodded in agreement and then Paars slit his palm again and smeared some blood all over the round mirror that he was still holding. Once the surface of the mirror was covered, he concentrated and repeated a question in his mind after wording carefully the question he wanted to ask.
"Who chopped this man's body into pieces?"
His blood got absorbed by the mirror and it formed a clear image that was just like a mirror reflection, unlike Oranje's crystal ball divination which formed blood images. In the mirror, the scene of the event was recreated and there was a figure wearing a plain black robe with a hood that covered all of the figure's face. The figure swung something that looked like a whip in anger and chopped up the man's body with clean cuts, and after venting their anger, the figure went away from the scene. After that, the image turned red like the color of blood and evaporated, returning the mirror to its original state.
"That's the power of an Unseen Astrologer? That divination is more powerful than Oranje's," complimented Groen after the process was done.
"Thanks. What do you think about what it showed us?" asked Paars.
"The mastermind is a very careful person as we can see from how he or she hid the face. He or she is also easily provoked, I'm sure," said Groen, giving his opinion.
"That thing that the mastermind was holding, I'm positive it is enchanted equipment-- or an enchanted weapon, to be precise. We are dealing with an organization, most likely, because summoning a ghoul isn't cheap, and an enchanted weapon on top of that," added Paars.
Hearing his partner's explanation, Groen got into thinking.
"Can you divine which organization the mastermind belongs to?" he asked Paars.
Paars shook his head and then said with regret, "I don't think so. I don't have enough information to go with it,"
"In that case, we need to check our registry of any organization in history that has something to do with supernatural creature summoning," said Groen decisively.
Paars nodded in agreement and then asked, "So what should we do about our Shroud friend?"
Groen looked at his partner in the eyes and smiled meaningfully, "We should let them be for now. After all, they have been helping us so far, no?"
...
Valentine arrived home pretty late that night. He had to take a detour far enough so that in case the dangerous person was still following them, they had a lot of chance to shake them off or mislead them. It was already one after midnight, but Valentine wouldn't be able to rest well without knowing what had threatened his and Luuk's lives.
"G, let's switch and you do divination now," he said demandingly and then lied in the bed with his eyes closed.
Not long after that, Valentine fell asleep and Graham woke up. He quickly got up to a sitting position and took out his lighter from the left front pocket of his pants.
He lit the lighter and focused on the gently burning flame in front of him while repeating a question in his mind.
'Who is the person that created such a dangerous presence before?'
He had no confidence that he would get an answer to that question because the person must be much stronger than him, but he had to check anyway. The flame in his hand started to burn brighter, but after waiting for several seconds, no image appeared within. His divination had failed, as he had predicted.
He had found out that he had to be creative with divination questions to bypass certain limitations, so he modified his question and concentrated on the flame.
"What happened in the scene where the man and woman were killed after Valentine and Luuk left?"
The flame in front of him burned brighter and slowly, an image appeared little by little. It was a cloaked figure with a hood that completely covered the face swinging around a whip-like object and cutting the man's body into pieces. After that, the figure dashed away from the scene and the image disappeared there.
"So that's the person who was chasing us. He or she is not the summoner, but at least part of the same organization," he said analytically.
Since he couldn't divine directly anything about the cloaked person, he had to go the roundabout way and asked another question to get the information he needed. He stared at the flame intently again and repeated a question in his mind.
'Which organizations in history have anything to do with summoned supernatural creatures?'
The flame in his hand formed an image within it that gradually became clearer. It was a page of an official-looking book that he had seen before. There were blurry paragraphs, which Graham assumed to be unrelated information, so he focused on the paragraph that he could read.
'Pale Society is a branch of ----- that worships the Deity of ----- --- ------. They were active fifty years ago and then suddenly vanished from the stage. They are infamous for their summonings of supernatural creatures because their members mostly consist of ---------. Although they mostly do things from behind the scene, their most renowned act of terrorism was when they swarmed Tilburg with a horde of ghouls, which caused significant damage to the city.'
Once he finished reading the whole paragraph, the image disappeared, returning the flame to its initial state.
"Val, if this is the same organization, why does the organization that disappeared from Tilburg suddenly appear here in Sloten?"
Graham was curious about the divination result, so he prepared another question.
'What effect will the Pale Society bring to Sloten?'
The flame suddenly burned very brightly and the surrounding area became dark. From the flame, an image slowly formed. It showed Sloten that was overrun with ghouls and wraiths. There were mangled bodies everywhere and blood was covering the ground. There were people in blue coats fighting the creatures back, but they were outnumbered. After that, the image disappeared abruptly.
"It seems I cannot see the full version of the divination as of now. We need to get stronger to see what will happen entirely and at the same time, try to stop it from happening," he decided with conviction.
"Running away is easy, Val, but once Sloten is down, other cities will follow. It's better to prevent it before they become a big problem."
Graham put out the fire and stuffed the lighter back inside his pocket. He then lied down in bed and started going through the things that he needed to do in the near future while looking at the ceiling above him.
"We're still waiting for the message from your Deity. When do you think it will come, Val?"
"For me, with the establishment of Zodiac Syndicate, I can use the associates to do my bidding while slowly gaining money and more members. Right now there are only Luuk and us. We can use this organization for information gathering through the associates. Maybe we can also consider making them Contractbounds."
"Once the Deity of the Tongue is pleased, I can quickly form a contract with a President rank Deity. That should increase our chance of fighting against Pale Society."
"You also need to be stronger soon because right now, you're the strongest offensive force we have. And your anti-divination is crucial in covering our tracks,"
"Tomorrow-- I mean today, let's help Luuk get his Jeweller contract. He is also crucial in our team. We also need to monitor Jacco's progress. It's more difficult to communicate with him because he lives far from here, and he is not often home so we can't call him on the landline,"
"For now, let us sleep, Val. Today will be a busy day,"