“She swore vengeance on all men with dark hearts.” - Lisa Papademetriou (Siren's Storm)

* * * *

A day later, Lucas only found himself nursing an even worse headache when the autopsy report was finally ready, as was the identity of the murder victim.

“Run his identity by me again,” Leonid ordered, his face one of disbelief.

Allen groaned a low, long groan, exchanging looks with Jonan who looked equally annoyed. “Making me repeat it ten times, twenty times isn’t going to change the results, Leonid,” Allen said almost sarcastically. He tapped his index finger on the folder in front of him, with the gazes of the rest of his teammates going towards the after-mentioned folder with his subtle action. “Guy’s a hunter. Or a former hunter in this case. Name’s Walden. No last name is known. He’s got quite the reputation amongst the underground and Gifted circles. Even known as The Butcher. No prizes earned for the reason why he had a moniker like that.”

Yeah, none of Team Alpha needs to know the exact reason why the man in question has a moniker like The Butcher. The name itself is very telling.

“No surprise why the underground exacted vengeance then,” Leonid muttered, and there were nods from all around. “Though there is also the possibility it might be Aegis at work too. Whenever a hunter is involved, it almost always involves them in some way as well. They hadn’t been keeping quiet for the last two years.”

“Though it has been over a year since we’ve seen anything from them, apart from the vague rumours going around. If this is them behind it, it means that Aegis is back at it again.” Lucas added with a frown.

“Though a former hunter, huh?” Taylor murmured, chewing on her bottom lip. “You don’t often see a hunter being kicked out.”

Much like the ESA, hunters only leave through death.

“Well, officially, he is no longer one,” Allen said cryptically, and the eyes of his teammates widened when they realised what Allen was trying to tell them. “You know as well as I do that hunters don’t just leave.” His eyes flickered towards the surveillance camera in the corner. “Many of the Butcher’s favourite targets during his time as an active hunter are children.” He grimaced. “Whether they be Gifted children, or even the children of Gifted themselves.”

“The Goddess help us.” Elijah paled.

“Elijah, didn’t you and Taylor go to that shack where we found him? That is his house or something, right? Did you find anything?” Lucas directed this question to his teammate.

Elijah exchanged looks with his twin. “Yes. I wish I didn’t.”

Taylor let out a long groan, burying her face in her hands, much to the confusion of the others. “That man put even serial killers to shame. It makes me wonder if maybe the underground has the right idea about hunters after all—”

“Quiet!” Team Alpha nearly jumped with Lucas’ sharp bark.

Their team leader had gotten to his feet, hands against the surface of the desk. His eyes flickered nervously towards the surveillance camera in the corner before he walked towards the door and opened it, looking outside the meeting room. Lucas then stepped back into the meeting room once more, closing and locking the door behind him.

“Watch your words, especially in ESA headquarters,” Lucas warned, eyes going from face to face. “Walls have ears.”

Not every single ESA agent after all is loyal to the ESA chief, and everyone in Team Alpha knows that.

Taylor sighed, exchanging contemplative looks with her brother. “…Yeah, I know.”

“What did you both find?” Lucas asked again after several moments like nothing had happened. He sank back into his seat, giving Taylor his utmost attention.

The twins exchanged contemplative looks—a silent message passing between their eyes, before Taylor then turned her attention towards Lucas, also pushing the folder in front of her towards Lucas. The only female member of Team Alpha looked grim.

“I hope you don’t have a weak stomach, or you have just eaten something, Lucas,” Taylor said cryptically. “You’re going to throw up if you do.”

For several moments, Lucas wasn’t sure if he even wanted to look at the contents within the folder if it managed to put that kind of look on Taylor’s face, and even Elijah's. Two of his most composed agents in Team Alpha.

Lucas then swallowed nervously before opening the folder with one finger, with Leonid, Jonan and Allen crowding around him as he did so. The moment the four ESA agents were faced with the grisly contents within that folder, it even made Lucas blanch, and he felt bile bubbling up his throat.

“The Goddess be with us,” Allen murmured, turning green in the face, and he clasped a hand to his mouth.

Grisly investigation photos of skulls placed neatly on shelves were just among the photos within the folder. And from the report written by the autopsy team, it seems like the skulls belonged to children. There were even photos of eyeballs floating within some kind of unknown substance in see-through glass jars, amongst several other photos of similar scenes.

“Okay. I think we’ve seen enough.” Lucas slammed the folder shut, much to the relief of his team members.

Elijah sighed, leaning back into his chair, looking from face to face. “When we left, the Forensics team was still there,” he informed Lucas. “They need to run some extra tests. But one of them told us that he’s relatively certain that the coverings of the sofas are made out of human skin.” Jonan blanched with that remark. “And from the sizes of the skulls that we found in the sitting area, we can be certain that they are from children.” He exchanged looks with his sister. “We can probably close a lot of the missing children’s cases over the last few years, if so. And most of his victims are more than likely Gifted.”

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“…I think I’m going to be sick.” Leonid is very pale.

“That’s not all—”

“There’s more?!”

Elijah wasn’t impressed with Jonan’s outburst and gave him a dirty look before turning his attention back towards Lucas. “We found a secret basement,” he said, much to Team Alpha’s surprise. Leaning across the table, he opened the folder in front of Lucas and flipped a few pages before stopping on the page he wanted that had photos of what must be the back of the shack. “One of your brother’s teammates—Remington Wayne—was asked to come along with Coleen Kodar, to help out. You know that Remington had incredibly sharp senses, despite not being a Gifted. He was the one that found the basement, or we would never have found it.”

Lucas nodded slowly. Occasionally, there is the occasional person that had incredibly sharp senses or abilities, despite not being a Gifted. And Lucas knew for a fact that Remington Wayne, or Remi for short, was one of those.

Leonid sighed, burying his face into his hands. “Do I even want to know what you lot found down there?” His voice was muffled.

“More of what we didn’t find.” Taylor scoffed, and every single pair of eyes, save for her twin’s, swivelled towards her.

“What?”

“From the amounts of blood, and even the remnants of chains down in the basement, it is clear that at some point, Walden had children chained down there, likely being tortured.” Elijah leaned forward again to flip a page. Lucas is certain he is going to have nightmares for weeks after this. Who needs to watch a horror movie when working as an ESA agent in Special Operations can subject one to all kinds of horror? “And from how fresh the blood is when we found it, probably quite recent too. Likely Gifted children, even.”

Allen sucked in a breath. “…Then I can only say that it’s a good thing that Aegis came and took this monster off the streets,” he said simply. He received several startled looks from his teammates, and he frowned. “What? I dare any of you to tell me that you’re not thinking the same thing that I am.” He defended himself. “You and I both know that even if we ever managed to capture Walden should we discover what kind of crimes that he had been committing, he would never have been charged. The charges would have been thrown out even before it reached the High Court, or he would have just been let off with a slap on the wrist. It almost always does whenever it involves a hunter or a former hunter, especially if their victims were Gifted. Tell me that I’m wrong.” His gaze was challenging.

Lucas winced, and his mind brought him back to the conversation he had with Timo and even Sera before. By the Goddess, how long ago was that now?

“W-Well…”

“If Walden’s murder is Aegis’ work, then it means they’ve resurfaced once more,” Leonid said solemnly, and he received nods from all around. He sighed, exchanging looks with Lucas who nodded grimly. “I hope none of you lot have put in vacation requests. We’re going to be working overtime for the next few months, I’ll bet.”

“It’s been two years, huh?” Jonan swivelled about in his swivel chair to face the corkboard that had photos and notes of all kinds pinned on it—since they first learnt about Aegis’ existence, and had been chasing after them for just as long. “Do we even know anything about them so far?” He wondered.

After all, how on earth do you find someone, or several someones in this case, when you don’t even know their name?

Even those ‘clients’ of Aegis that they managed to track down were shockingly tight-lipped. And considering what Aegis had done for them, no one is really surprised that they refused to say anything about Aegis, or even admitted that they were in contact with that notorious organisation.

And if Aegis’ past ‘clients’ were tight-lipped, then one has to find another definition for that word when it comes to the underground. Aegis might as well be a ghost for all the information, or lack thereof, that the ESA could get out of their underground contacts.

“The only encounter we ever had with Aegis is when they came to break that Gifted out of HQ. Must be about a year and a half ago now. Maybe even longer.” Lucas remarked, getting to his feet and walking towards the nearby file cabinet to pull out the astonishingly thin file that he had created when Team Alpha had first started hunting down Aegis.

“Oh, you mean when they blew up half of the headquarters and sent two squads of ESA agents to the hospital for burn wounds?” Allen snorted, recalling that incident. “Though thanks to that incident, we managed to come up with an excuse to revamp and overhaul our security systems.” He exchanged looks with Elijah who gave a weak smile.

If there is ever an indication that the ESA is nearly completely at the mercy of the hunters and even Parliament, that incident is one. Team Alpha knew for one that Tiara had been trying to push for a revamp and overhaul of their computer and security systems since she’d taken over. Technology had progressed far beyond what it had been when Tiara was a new agent herself. The systems that the ESA had been using had been ‘relics’ of that time, but she had never managed to get the permission or funds to overhaul the systems.

The attack by Aegis on ESA headquarters nearly two years ago had given Tiara the excuse she needed to do a complete overhaul of ESA’s computer systems and even their security.

“Anything we can deduce about them so far?” Lucas wanted to know. Aegis might be one of the rather impressive numbers of cases that Team Alpha had on hand, but they had always been the priority for them.

“Nothing that we don’t already know.” Leonid shook his head. “But at the very least, we can deduce that at least a good half of their group is Gifted. A lot of the incidents that they are involved with normally involve Gifted. So it’s safe to say that they’re vigilantes in a way. They protect the Gifted in the way that the law couldn’t.” Leonid bit on his lower lip, averting his eyes.

“They’re likely one of those that didn’t register with the database, then.” Jonan sighed, leaning back into his chair, referring to the law that requires all Gifted to register themselves.

While it is one of the most absolute laws in Eldario—mostly upheld by the hunters and even the members of the ESA’s Gifted Task Force, the truth is that not every Gifted will do that, as they knew it would just subject themselves to discrimination and baseless charges and accusations should a crime ever occur somewhere near their place of residence.

It is one of several reasons why most of the Gifted in Eldario lived in the underground society.

“So far, whatever that we knew about them are just rumours and heresy.” Elijah volunteered the information. “I even asked Louis from Team Delta—he’s the best hacker and computer expert we have in ESA at the moment. And even he is stumped. He couldn’t access the website that Aegis uses as one of their methods for people to contact them.” He shook his head wryly. “Guess he’s just been dethroned from his title as Eldario’s best hacker and foremost computer expert.”

“My contacts within the underground too were very unwilling to talk to me whenever the word Aegis came up,” Allen remarked. “Though the underground has been all frosty towards ESA agents for over a year now. There was some kind of incident involving the hunters, I think, that had them all pissed off. I can never find out what either.” He shrugged.

“So far, all that we know at least is that the leader of Aegis is known as Zero,” Lucas remarked, reading through the file he had compiled on Aegis. “Most likely an alias of some sort. They’ve been around for at least two years—as far as we know, and they’ve been really careful since their formation, and there isn’t much that we could find on them.”

“Though if Walden’s death is their handiwork, it is a first to see them being this ruthless.” Leonid pointed out, twirling a pen in between his fingers. “It’s not their normal MO. And then again, if children are involved, I can’t honestly blame them for being this angry.”

Silence fell once more, even as Team Alpha contemplated Leonid’s words.

Finally, Elijah let out a long, low sigh, leaning back into his chair, and looking from face to face. “In the end, just who is in the right, and who is in the wrong?” He pondered out loud. “We think they’re the bad ones because we’re the ones opposing them.” He drew quotation marks in the air with his pen as he spoke, “But to Aegis, aren’t we the bad guys in their eyes, and the eyes of all the Gifted in the country?”

No one knew what to say to that statement. Even Taylor was speechless.

“Though if it’s true that they are Gifted children being held in Walden’s basement, and they have been freed by Aegis, then someone must know something about them,” Lucas said at last, bringing the topic back on track. “I can’t see Aegis bringing a couple of children along with them. Most likely traumatised, and even heavily injured children, at that. It’ll bring attention to them—something they can’t afford right now.”

“They would bring those children to the underground. They would never turn to the ESA or even the orphanages.” Taylor summarised.

“Elijah, you got contacts amongst the underground, don’t you?” Elijah nodded slowly, not liking the look on Lucas’ face, and having a bad feeling about what he was going to hear next. “Think you can recommend someone that can tell us what we want to know?”

Elijah looks as if he wants to groan out loud. “The underground will never turn on its own, Lucas. I told you that countless times before,” he said, exasperated. “And getting Ethan to part with information that he had already declined to give is worse than pulling teeth.” Seeing the look on Lucas’ face, Elijah groaned out loud. “Fine, just don’t say I didn’t warn you.” He grumbled, ignoring the amused looks of his teammates. “If you have to go yourself, Lucas, as no doubt you would, you can’t go alone.” He warned. “They’ll eat you alive if you do.”

“Leonid.”

Leonid nodded when Lucas turned towards him. “Where can we find this informant of yours?” Leonid asked Elijah absently, already mentally doing an inventory check of his weapons and supplies.

Elijah grumbled something under his breath. “For the love of the Goddess, don’t piss Ethan off,” he almost begged. “He’s one of the best informants for a reason and doesn’t tend to work with the ESA, if at all. It took me years before he’d even agree to work with me. Even so, he doesn’t always tell me what I want to know. I can’t afford to lose an informant of Ethan’s calibre, considering the feelings or lack thereof the underground has towards the ESA.”

“We’ll watch our tongues and behaviour,” Lucas promised.

Elijah eyed Lucas doubtfully before shrugging. “At this time of year, there is only one place where Ethan would be,” he said, tearing a page out of his notebook and scribbling an address, handing the piece of paper to Lucas. He met with the eyes of his team leader who read the address on the slip of paper, and Lucas paled. Elijah nodded solemnly. “Be careful. And don’t go unarmed.”

Lucas sighed, looking down at the slip of paper once more, before meeting with Leonid’s eyes.

“Zalfari.”