Chapter 3

Elliana felt positively giddy as she flashed her new badge along with Agents Smith and Sanchez. Smith was a shorter woman with dark brown hair that came to her shoulder and a body that was clearly the result of extensive martial arts training. She had striking green eyes but her face was a bit to severe to be called pretty and her nose had definitely been broken before. Although, someone had one a pretty good job of resetting it so it was only noticeable under close observation. Smith had taken a single look at Elliana and immediately taken a dislike to her. Fortunately, she was used to such reactions so she just ignored the mixed disgusted and jealous looks the woman kept shooting her. Elly’s current look was about as plain as she could manage. Not that she would tell the other woman that considering all that would do was make Smith hate her even more. If Smiths welcome was less than friendly, Sanchez more than made up for it. Sanchez was moderately good looking standing slightly taller than Elly maybe six feet with an athletic build and admittedly fantastic hair. Something he obviously put quite a bit of effort into. He had been taken with her immediately and filled her in on all the details of the case at the office and on the ride over, before promptly switching regaling her with tales of his own exploits that had Smith snorting in disgust.

After pushing through the crowed and stepping through the opaque aether tech generated crime scene barrier, Elliana took a look around the scene and her previous excitement at being on her first case vanished like smoke. The scene was horrifying. Bodies covered in gang tattoos and wearing the red and gold of the Crimson hawks were scattered everywhere, or at least pieces of them were. Parts of buildings and pieces of machinery that had been used as cover appeared to have exploded turning into shrapnel that riddled the gangsters still forms. The worst came a second later as the smell hit her. There was aether tech devices set up to create a stasis field to prevent rotting to a degree but the smell was still bad enough to have Elly on her knees dry heaving. After couple of minutes that felt like a couple hours, she finally got herself under control. Looking up several individuals were standing over her patiently. Even Smith who she expected to take the chance to ridicule her had an understanding, even compassionate look. “Don’t worry,” Sanchez said offering her a hand, “happens to everyone, especially when your fist time is fucking massacre.”

After being helped up Elliana breathed deeply for a few moments to steady herself before opening her eyes and taking in the scene again. After a few moments of assessing she looked at the looked over to Sanchez. “Can you have everyone move to the perimeter,” she asked as calmly as she could manage still shaken by the horror in front of her. Sanchez nodded and began shouting for all the forensic people and the uniformed cops to move back to the edge of the barrier. Once everyone had cleared out Elly picked her way to the center of the scene dodging bodies, limbs and holes blasted into the dock a from the Hawks futile attempt to fight back. Upon reaching her destination Elly closed her eyes, as much to avoid look at the carnage as to help her focus and reached out with her mind. The Aether an endless river of power that flowed through dimensions opened up to her mind’s eye.

Trackers were a type psionic practitioner that possessed extraordinary sensitivity to aetheric disturbances at the cost of low amounts raw power, Elly could barely command enough aether to levitate a five-pound weight, but in return they could sense other psionic practitioners from half a mile away, more if they were actively using their abilities. In addition, they could feel the echoes in places where strong aetheric disturbances had occurred. Finally, there was the ability that gave them the name trackers. As long as they got a good lock on an aetheric signature, be it organic or technologically generated, they could follow the almost imperceptible trail the left behind them for up to four days. This ability lead to them often being dispatched beyond the city to sites where Sidhe had been spotted in hope they could track them back to their camps or settlements.

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At least those were they limits of normal trackers. With the exception of the four day limit, Elly’s were several times greater than that. In fact, she could even sense souls and spirit energies if she tried, not that she would ever admit that, even mentioning messing with the soul was a quick way to get yourself burned as a heretic. As it was, she vastly limited the abilities she showed only exceeding previous records by about ten percent in her training, and even that had raised eyebrows.

With her mind’s eye Elliana examined the scene from an aetheric perspective. Reveling in the calm and detachment from her physical senses. Within the aether she sensed echoes of the battle that had taken place. Scars still remained in the wake of certain powerful attacks. In fact, some places had seen such concentrated power that she couldn’t make sense of it at first. Unable to understand how Aether could be forced into such a dense, complicated forms, she focused her attention on one of the biggest scars. She attempted to unravel its nature however after a few seconds she sensed something that shocked her out of her detached state. Spirit energy she shuddered traces of it are enmeshed with the aether. She had sensed Asuras before, The Church had managed to capture a couple alive with a great deal of difficulty for the sake of training trackers. She had even gotten a chance to examine traces of one of their spells; it had the same structure. Spirit energy seamlessly woven with the Will that bound the aether magnifying the techniques power multiple times over. Elly was likely the only tracker that could examine spirit energy traces directly instead of by the disturbance it caused in the aether, and if there were others, they were also smart enough to keep their mouths shut.

These traces aren’t Sidhe, she mulled silently, as if one of them could get passed the scanners, they were human. Damn this should be impossible, Elly thought as she continued her inner monologue, now it makes sense. Knox and Mills they must have guessed. After all what else can wield such power with such precision. They’d never admit it out loud, probably spent the day telling themselves it was impossible and that some new tech was the only possibility. They probably brought me in willing the story they told everyone and themselves was right and knowing if it wasn’t I’d recognize it and be stuck with one of two options play dumb and lead the too wherever the culprit is hiding. The strike team will probably have heavy explosives and orders to use them. Then, they ‘dig up’ a few useless fragments from the rubble, hand them over to the Archbishop and wash their hands of this mess. My other option being to tell the truth and get labeled a heretic and burned even if the higher ups of the church do believe me for the sake of protecting the cannon. “Fuck this is a mess,” Elliana breathed softly to herself as she decided on the one viable course of action.

Decision made; Elly turned her attentions back to the Aether flows. This time she swept passed the lingering remnants left by the powerful arcane attacks quickly tracing them back to their source. Once she had the origin Elly turned and began picking her way over to the edge of the docks where the monster responsible for this nightmare had unleashed his fury. Her eyes were closed, as she walked stepping around bodies over holes in the dock, but with her Psionic senses extended Elly could see with range and accuracy that far exceeded her mundane vision. When she had first awoken her abilities at twelve, she used to forgo her mortal senses walk around everywhere with her eyes closed. However, she quickly realized that made people uncomfortable and caused her to ostracized by her peers. Now she only did it when necessary or when she was alone. As she reached where the practitioner had stood, she focused her attentions on picking up the minute traces of atheric signature. Everyone had one but few were strong enough to leave a remnant behind, to make matters worse they dissipated quickly. Damn this would have been easier yesterday, Elly mused, a moment later she finally identified the trace and quickly locked her senses onto it. Gotcha, Elly grinned for the first time since arriving at the scene. With the aetheric signature locked she was even better than a bloodhound with a scent. She could follow the barest hint left by her targets passage as long as she stayed less than four days behind them. That rule held firm even for her, at that point, the trail would fade completely and even she couldn’t follow it.

Her work complete, Elliana turned and marched back over to her anxiously waiting escorts. “Got it,” she said determination leaking into her voice. “Let’s go get this monster.”