Chapter 3 – The 33rd Case – Part 3
Saturday, August 6th, Year 9989, Balien Calendar.
6:30 PM, Lawrence, Kansas, United states.
Xi, Alice, Mia and Emma were roaming the city. They went to shopping for all kinds of stuff: right from apparels to jewelry. After that, they went to watch a movie and even went to dinner together. After that, it was already 10.30PM, so Xi suggested, “Hi, it’s already late, so let’s leave and head home for today.”
“Ok, Let us drop Emma and Alice along the way, and then I will drop you to your place,” says Mia.
“Won’t you be late?” asks Emma, and continues, “Let’s take Uber and go, it will save all of us some time.”
To which, Mia says, “That’s fine, No one’s home today, my mom and dad went out to my granddad’s place. So, it’s fine if I am a bit late.”
“Then we will do as Mia said,” says Alice.
So, all of them board Mia’s car, and start towards Alice’s house. After fifteen minutes or so, they reach Alice’s house. Just as they drop off Alice and start moving, they hear a cold, emotion less voice.
“Why are you guys leaving so soon?” as the three girls inside the car turn to see the speaker, they were thunderstruck to see Alice covered in numerous light blue water elemental particles. Soon, the entire car was surrounded by snow; even the tiers were frozen and were glued to the ground by ice.
Seeing the state of her car, Mia was the first to scream, Emma was also scared out of her wits as well, while Xi narrows her eyes. She knows, from the amount of water elemental particles surrounding Alice, she should at least be an Intermediate Mage.
All three of them get out of the car, and stare at Alice, who now looked like a stranger to them. The amicable and smiling face was now gone, replaced by a cold and sinister face, which they found hard to believe, was their friend.
“Alice, what are you doing?” asks Mia.
Alice sneers, and says, “Can you die for my sake?”
“Die? Are you the one who killed Ivory and all those people? Why? Why did you do that?” asks Emma, with grief and resentment.
“No hard feelings, I just wanted to power up,” says Alice, with an emotionless face. “And now, you can join Ivory too.”
Just as she finishes speaking, she waves her hand. Followed by her wave, all the water elemental particles surrounding her starts to condense into three Icicles, which are then shot in the direction of Xi and others.
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Just when the Icicles were about to hit them, a strong wind blows past them, and all the Icicles are directly cut in half. When they look up, they see a figure dressed in black suit, and wearing a silver mask, hovering in midair. Seeing the figure in midair, Alice was about to say something, when she hears an excited shout.
“Boss, you came,” shouts Xi, and continues, “I thought you were going to wait till I was dead,” Xi pouts with indignation.
“Yes, yes, I will make it up to you with whatever you like,” says Mr. X, and feels bad the moment he finishes, as sees the glint in Xi’s eyes, and thinks, “It seems there won’t be money left from this case as well.”
“Boss, you are the best, I--” beams Xi, before finishes, an icicle come crashing down towards her; however, she moves to her left gracefully and dodges it.
“I would not underestimate her, she’s my Retainer Knight after all,” says Mr. X, and points towards Alice before saying, “You over there, I will give you once chance to surrender.”
“Surrender? You must be joking; however, it seems like I have seen you somewhere, but I can’t remember it,” says Alice, after a momentary pause, she continues, “Oh, I remember now, you must be that detective Mr. X I read about in paper, Did you perhaps know that it was me who killed those people? That’s why you sent your retainer to my school?” asks Alice.
“How could I not know, if you leave your name on murders like that?” says Mr. X.
“Oh, you noticed it? Can you tell me what gave me away?” Alice stares in shock.
“Simple, first, when vampire drink blood, it would not be so clean, you didn’t even leave a drop of blood around, the only other option would be a Water Mage, who has contracted with a blood spirit. Second, All those murders had one thing in common, that’s your school, even though you tried to divert attention by killing that unemployed man who had nothing with your school, it was still pretty obvious. Third, you killed five people Adam, Lawson, Ivory, Charles and Emily, take first letter of all names, you will get, ALICE, it’s like you were screaming ‘I AM ALICE’, how could I not notice. Lastly, Miss. Emily was drinking tea with her assailant, it was just a hunch, I mean who would care about names of their victims? So we asked around to see if she knew anyone named Alice, so there you were, an Intermediate Water Mage.” Says Mr. X.
“Clap, Clap, Clap, you are better than I thought,” says Alice, with a smile.
“Boss, what’s a blood spirit?” asks Xi, interrupting Alice’s words.
“When, a mage advances from Novice to Intermediate stage, they can sign contract with a spirit that’s summoned by a summoning ritual,” says Mr. X, and continues, “To summon a blood spirit, one should sacrifice the blood of another person, the stronger the person sacrificed, the stronger will be the spirit summoned. Like all other spirits, the blood spirit will also be very weak when someone first contracts it, they must also be powered up by letting them consume their elemental energy, for wind spirits its wind energy, and so on, for blood spirit, it must consume blood energy from leaving beings, that’s why blood from her victims’ bodies were completely extracted.”
“Yes, that’s correct, my blood spirit needs human blood, that’s the reason for these murders, so what? I know you are an Archmage; even then do you dare arrest me? Do you know which organization I belong? You will be hunted down by the syndicate if something happens to me,” says Alice, and then rips off the cloth on her right shoulder. There you could see a crimson colored star with five vertices, the stigma of the most dangerous organization of the underground world, ‘The Crimson Star Syndicate’.
Mr. X stares at the crimson star tattoo for a long time, before starting to laugh like a lunatic. Immense aura of an Archmage mixed with hate, madness and grief spreads out from him.
“After so long, after searching in 9 countries, I finally meet someone from Crimson star,” shouts Mr. X, and stares at Alice, like a tiger staring its pray, and continues, “You should have said this sooner, now see, I wasted so much time.”
Hearing that a chill runs down through Alice’s spine.