"I'll answer all your questions!" Lenora nodded again. "Just free me from this curse."

Smokewell scoffed and raised her chin, eyes gazing at the roof, adding more drama to her pause. "Tell me, what do you know of the man named Lloyd Hopper?" she said.

Lenora paused. "The witch hunter general?"

"Yes, that Lloyd Hopper."

"I won't be able to tell you much," Lenora said, "But, I know someone who might."

We all looked at the woman curiously.

"Who is it?" Smokewell asked.

"My husband, Clyde. He works at the Orowen Internal Police department," she said.

That gave me a pause. According to Old Elsa's memories, the Inquisition was a special division of the Internal Police. Lenora had to be the correct link in the chain of omens.

"Then we shall talk to your husband ourselves!" Smokewell said.

"Ourselves?" Lenora looked at us. "I-Is the spirit involving you all in this?"

"Don't question my words, you insolent girl!" Smokewell snapped again.

I gave a nervous chuckle and stepped forth. "I mean, we don't mind coming along. The spirit of darkness has possessed our housecat, afterall."

Asmod nodded. "Yes, we'll come along so we can make sure nothing bad happens to her."

"Now make haste for our departure!" Smokewell called out.

I rolled my eyes and lifted the cat into my arms. "Can you turn it down a bit? Your acting is getting annoying now."

****

We drove over to Lenora's place in a Asmod's carriage. The tenement building had five stories with brick walls of fading paint and dark windows. Lenora told us it was the housing assigned especially to the Internal Police employees. "Everyone who lives here works for the government," she said as she shyly led us up the front steps and into the building.

We followed her up the stairs in a slightly tense silence. Asmod's face didn't betray any noticeable emotion but I could tell he was being cautious. Even Lily seemed more serious than usual. Smokewell sat on my shoulder as I kept mounting the stairs, trying to calm my heart that kept skipping a beat.

Lenora unlocked the door to her flat and led us in, "My husband isn't home yet," she said as she pointed us to the sofa in the sitting room. "But I can look into some of the files or documents from his work for you."

Smokewell climbed down onto my lap as I settled on the sofa. "You better find something useful about Hopper for me. Or I'll make you curse your husband."

Lenora swallowed hard and nodded before disappearing into what seemed to be the master bedroom.

I knit my eyebrows at the cat. "Would you stop doing that?" I whispered.

"Stop what?" Smokewell asked.

"Stop intimidating the woman, for god's sake," I said. "That lady was about to kill herself when we met her. You are not making this any easier on her."

"My job is to make things for us, not for some pitiful stranger we just met," she said.

"But, Grimly is right," Asmod said, "The woman is also under a lot of stress. We should be careful with her or she might make a mishap that might get us sucked deeper into this trouble."

"Hey, look at this," Lily said and showed us a picture frame of what seemed to be a slightly younger Lenora who seemed to be smiling next to a man with close cropped hair and a stoic face. "Lenora and her husband," she said.

"That man looks constipated," Smokewell said.

"Lenora looks quite happy though. Don't you think so, Miss Elsa?" Lily said.

I didn't say anything as I looked at the picture. For some reason, looking at the two faces made me oddly nostalgic. I remembered another picture in another home in another world. I was part of that picture. I was much younger than Lenora. But I was only one smiling in it. While the other two people posing with me looked like they would've preferred being anywhere other than the picture.

I was still wondering how to answer Lily when Lenora walked back into the sitting room. She had a notebook in her hand. "I-I'm afraid I couldn't find anything solid about General Hopper," she said nervously. "But, here's my husband's work diary. He notes down some important things in it. He has written in the most recent entry that General likes to have his tea with a dash of lemon."

The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

She showed us the page on which the husband had written it. Smokewell leaned forward to read it.

"Why has your husband made a note of that?" Lily asked.

"He is the head chef at the canteen of the IP headquarters," Lenora said.

I felt my forehead crease as disappointment swelled within me. This information wasn't really useful.

"You insolent girl!" Smokewell snapped. "I told you to find something that's of value!"

"I-I tried...." Lenora staggered back on her feet. "I...I really did...I swear..."

Lily slowly rose to her feet. "It's okay, Miss Lenora," she said in a soft soothing voice. "Don't be nervous. It's alright."

I discreetly pinched Smokewell's back, making her hiss at me. I threw a subtle glare at her.

Lenora had managed to calm down a little. "I'm sorry," she said in a small voice. "I have the habit of stuttering when I'm really afraid."

"It's alright," Asmod said in his fatherly, reassuring voice. "We all have our nervous tics."

Lenora actually smiled. But the smile soon vanished when the key turned in the front door. Someone walked in. It was her husband. He didn't seem surprised to see her home while she was supposed to be at work. It was Lenora who seemed like the rug had been pulled off from under her. "Honey, I-I thought...you were at work."

Clyde was as stoic as he was in the picture we had seen of him. "Well I'm here now," he said. "It's funny that I was actually expecting you to be here too. Or more like, I knew you weren't headed for your work even though you said you were."

Lenora went quiet, her lips tightened, her gaze turned to the floor.

I felt like I should've said something to ease the obvious tension in the room. But Lily spoke up first instead. "We ran into Lenora less than an hour ago. We work in the building right next to hers. She looked sick so we thought why not accompany her to her home?" She kept a friendly smile throughout her expression.

Clyde turned to us as if he had just noticed us. His eyes were like that of a hawk's as he took in each of our faces. And then he smiled back. Something was very uncanny about that expression even though it looked very real. "Thank you so much for making the effort to see her off," he said before stepping close to his wife and wrapping an arm around her. "Nora hasn't been feeling well for quite a while actually. I try to make her rest, try to make her stay at home but she won't listen. Such a devil." He playfully pinched her cheek.

Lenora didn't meet his gaze nor did she smile. Her reaction to her husband's touch could be chalked up to be the result of her fear. The reason why she came to the clock tower was because she wanted to come away from a crowd and her husband so that she didn't accidentally curse someone, as she believed she was capable of doing. Yet, something about the way Lenora reacted the moment Clyde returned didn't seem like concern for his well being. She seemed more like a mouse who had been cornered by a cat.

"So," Clyde said to us with a smile, "Now that I'm here I think you don't have to worry about Nora much. I can take care of her from here. Thanks again for dropping her home."

My left eye twitched slightly. Something really wasn't right with the couple I saw standing in front of me. Then I noticed something else. All my companions were casting the same suspicious gaze at the man smiling at us. Then Asmod said, "Lenora, do you want us to leave?"

The woman looked up with wide eyes. This time she couldn't even hide the fear that was evident in his eyes.

"I just told you that I can handle it from here," Clyde said. The hospitable smile was gone from his face now. There was a repressed anger in his eyes like a wolf ready to pounce.

"Lenora, we just asked something," Lily said. "Do you want us to leave?"

Clyde didn't hold back his glare anymore. I could tell his grip on Lenora's shoulder had just tightened.

"Y-Yes, thanks for coming along...I-I'll be f-fine..." the woman said.

"Why are you stuttering, Lenora?" I narrowed my eyes.

Clyde pulled his wife closer against him. "Yes, Lenora why are you stuttering. Can't you speak properly?"

"I-I...I..."

"I think we all know the reason why Lenora is stuttering," Asmod said.

"Agreed." I nodded. "And it's about time someone did something about."

"With pleasure." Lily rose from the sofa and stepped towards Clyde with an unflinching look.

Clyde seemed uncertain when the girl made her way towards him but he managed to keep his glare. And before he even had a clue, Lily had driven her fist into his stomach, knocking the air out of him and shoving him several feet back. He tried to retaliate but Lily was a lot more nimble and armed with her near super human strength. She crouched and swept her foot at his ankle, throwing him off balance as her blow connected. She was about stomp him in the stomach when Smokewell spoke up.

"No need to brutalize him any further," she said. "Just knock him out so he doesn't get in our way after this."

Lily nodded and pulled out a little black doll from her pocket. She broke the doll's arm and crushed it in her grip. The arm turned to dust. She grabbed Clyde by his collar and yanked him up. Then she blew the dust in his face. The man went unconscious. Lily slid the doll back in her pocket and straightened out her skirt.

Lenora stood frozen in her spot, bewildered and afraid. "What did you do to him?" she asked.

"I don't think that really matters at the moment," Asmod said. "The question is what was he doing to you?"

Lenora looked away, flustered. "Nothing," she said quietly.

"You aren't stuttering anymore," I said. "You said, you stutter when you are afraid."

"Isn't it convenient that your stuttering stopped right when your husband went unconscious?" Lily said.

Lenora's face turned a deeper shade of red. "I only stuttered because I was scared I might curse him."

"You weren't scared of cursing any of us at the clock tower, though," Asmod said. "You weren't stuttering back then."

Lenora now went quiet.

"You still haven't answered the question," I said, "What was he doing to you?"

The woman swallowed hard before saying, "When you asked me what I knew about General Hopper and I only showed you the diary entry about how he likes his tea, I wasn't being fully honest."

"Well, what were you hiding then?" Smokewell asked.

Lenora nervously rolled her lips and went into the other room and came back with a small wooden box. "The Internal Police have distributed these among all their employees," she said. "The purpose of sharing these is so that they could test if someone was cursed or bewitched among the families of their own employees." She opened the box. Inside it was a thin stiletto knife.