It took a trip to Rayne’s desk and a few phone calls to the Body Disposal Squad to get answers.

Yes, apparently they had phones. Phones that looked exactly like human ones, no less. Strangely, there didn’t seem to be cellphones though. Go figure. In any case, I finally found out the state Volk’s body was in.

Well, sort of. Basically, all I got was ‘he had two fang marks on his neck’. That wasn’t exactly the level of detail I was looking for. Even getting the most basic of information was going to be an uphill battle.

I turned to Yaika. “So… What do the marks mean?”

Yaika seemed pleased that I asked her a question, the corners of her mouth curling up slightly. “A Succubus can suck out someone’s life force by biting down on their neck.”

“Sounds like a vampire.”

“Dude, you can’t say that,” Brad said in a whisper that was so loud it might as well not been a whisper at all. “They’re gonna get really offended if they hear you.”

“Vampires suck blood, Ryley,” Yaika said, seemingly unaffected by Brad’s freak out. “This is life force we’re talking about.”

At the end of the day, weren’t ‘blood’ and ‘life force’ basically the same thing? Whatever.

“So we can assume the cause of death was ‘loss of life force’ then?” I sighed.

“Probably.”

Well that didn’t help. Though I supposed it narrowed down our suspects to just the succubi. After I finished looking around Volk’s office, I would have to talk to the other two… Succy Girls.

I moved toward Volk’s desk, being careful to watch the ground as I stepped. “I don’t suppose demons know how to take fingerprints, do they?” I yelled back to the two behind me.

“Finger what?” Yaika responded.

“Fingerprints,” I said. “If you have a way to see them, you can figure out who’s touched what. It could lead to a really useful clue.”

“Oh!” Yaika sounded excited. “How do we do that?”

How was I supposed to know? The detectives on TV always seemed to have the prints analyzed off-screen. Even if I knew what kind of chemical they used, there was no guarantee that they’d even have that. I wouldn’t even know how to make it. I was a pretend law expert, not a scientist, damn it.

“We need special… human… stuff,” I said. Real smooth. “I don’t think you guys have it. Hell, I don’t even know if demons have fingerprints in the first place.” Not to mention all the water. It was possible they were washed away.

“What a shame,” Yaika said.

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

“Anyway, I’ll just see what I can find for now.”

I looked over the things on the top of the desk. There was an open case for a fancy pen or something, but it was empty. Mostly, the desk just had packets of paper that were wrinkled from water damage. I took a peek at them, but they were filled with writing I couldn’t understand. Demons might have been speaking English, but they sure weren’t writing in it.

I walked around to the other side of the desk and pulled open the drawer. Inside, there was a small black notebook. I didn’t have gloves on, but since we couldn’t look for fingerprints, I figured it wouldn’t matter if I touched it. I picked it up and opened it.

Oh yeah. I couldn’t understand any of what it said.

“Hey.” I held out the book. “I can’t read your language. Can one of you tell me what this says?”

Brad moved a tentacle, but stopped when Yaika started walking. “Let me see,” she said, moving at the speed of a rock sitting stationary. I walked over to her instead.

“Here,” I said.

She took the book out of my hand and flipped through it, her big eyes open wide.

“I think it’s a scheduling book…” She didn’t blink for what felt like ages. “It’s just lists of names with times.”

“Anything stand out?” I asked nervously. Basically, I was at her mercy. I just hoped she would notice something, assuming there was something to notice in the first place.

“Nothing really,” she kept flipping. “It’s really just a list of names.”

Well, back to the drawing board.

“Wait,” Yaika stopped. “I… may have found something.”

“Really?” I stood next to her, looking at the notebook. I couldn’t read it, but I could tell there were only three lines with writing on them.

“This page is dated for yesterday,” Yaika said. “It says, ‘Cyana, Goldie, Violetta’. The first two are crossed out… but Violetta’s isn’t.” She tilted her head. “I wonder why he didn’t cross out her name…”

I had an idea why he hadn’t. He hadn’t because he died before he could, and he died because Violetta fucking killed him.

“Great,” I sighed. “Of course that’s what it says.” I took the book back and threw it over to Brad. “Put this in a bag or something. We’ll take it as evidence.”

“Is that… okay?” Brad shifted his eyes around. “To take it, I mean.”

“Yeah,” I moved back to the desk. “We have to take things we find that might be related to the case.” I took a peak back inside the desk, but nothing else jumped out at me. “Yai-… I mean, Princess Yaika. Can you take a look at these papers on the desk and make sure there’s nothing else important? No offense Brad, but I don’t want everything… covered in slime.” I couldn’t think of any politer way to say that.

“Will you be alright, princess?” Brad asked.

“A little reading isn’t a problem.” Yaika continued her trek to the desk. “Leave it to me.”

“Thanks.” I got down on all fours, looking around at the floor around the desk. It was surprisingly clean, and I had a feeling it had more to do with Rayne keeping things tidy than the sprinkler.

I looked underneath the desk. It was free of water, but there were a few black scraps of paper. I supposed Rayne must have missed them. Wait, black paper? I had seen something like this before. It looked like something had been burned.

I grabbed the biggest scrap and stood back up. “Do you know if Volk smoked?” I asked.

“I can ask Ms. Rayne about it,” Brad said. “I doubt it though. I didn’t see any ashtrays around.”

“I think someone might have burned something,” I showed them the scrap.

“Oh, let me see.” Yaika stood on her toes. “What does it mean?”

“Well it might have something to do with the alarms going off, don’t you think?”

“What do we do with it?” Yaika asked.

“We have to keep it as evidence for the trial,” I said, walking over to Brad. “Do you have another bag?”

“I got ya, bro.” Brad out a plastic bag from inside his body. Gross.

I glanced over at Yaika. “Any luck with those papers?”

“They’re just contracts,” Yaika said. “Meant to be filled out by idols joining the management office, I think.”

That made sense. This was a management office, after all.

“Alright,” I sighed. “We’ll check this out again before we leave.” I walked over to the door. “I think we need to have a talk with these other two… Succy Girls.”

Alright, it might have been getting a little old.