*******Astraeus Manor*********

"Sirius, is he really of any use to you?" a man asked, glancing at the unconscious man slumped on the wall of the room.

"It was already a close call with the police when we killed Shane Woodskiff. Now that those detectives are involved in Hartrand's disappearance, we have to take more drastic measures."

The man approached the unmoving body and slapped it. There was no response, although the unconscious man's breathing sped up.

"Why not just dispose of them, instead of going through the trouble of keeping them here?"

Sirius's fist slammed on the large wooden table, causing the man to flinch.

"I have my own reasons, Elnath!" he roared. "Even if your father failed to secure the Erebus's soul, at least he was a competent man."

Elnath went stiff at the mention of his father. "My apologies, sir. I've stepped over my rank."

Sirius stood up. "Watch the man, and alert me when he wakes up. I'll be in my office."

"Yes, sir."

Sirius left the room, leaving Elnath alone with the unmoving body beside him.

"What an oblivious man," he laughed to himself. "He calls himself the leader of our organisation, but he can't even see through a lie."

He gritted his teeth and clenched his fist. "Sirius has a use for this detective, but is he himself useful at all? He doesn't deserve his rank," he thought.

His mind drifted back to the month before, when Sirius tasked him and his father, Aldebaran, to Duke's Lake to retrieve a 15-year-old boy named Shane Woodskiff.

"Vega's intel suggests that the Erebus has entered his body. It is your job to contain it, and bring it to me." Sirius said.

Elnath and Aldebaran bowed. "Consider it done, Sire," Aldebaran said.

When they arrived at the Woodskiff's residence in the middle of the night, they walked into a bloodbath. Three bodies strewn on the floor, mutilated and mangled. Two adults and a little girl, their lives forcefully taken from them.

It made Elnath smile.

And in the middle of the room was Shane. He was covered in blood from head to toe, and he was holding a blade to his throat.

"I'm sorry...," the boy mumbled. "I'm so sorry..."

Elnath approached Shane and grabbed his collar. The knife clattered to the floor as it fell out of his hand. Elnath picked the blade up and examined it curiously, before putting it in his pocket.

Elnath turned his head to face his father, who was watching intently. "His eyes are completely black. Vega was right," he chuckled.

He turned back to Shane and started talking in his warm, mellow voice. "Don't cry, Shane. It's over now. Just close your eyes, and everything will be fine."

The boy did what he said and fell still. Elnath threw him over his shoulder and turned to Aldebaran.

Aldebaran started to laugh. "After all these years, the Enneasteri has gai—"

He gurgled mid-sentence, watching horrified as blood started to erupt from his mouth.

"Apologies, father. I just can't let you take all the credit," Elnath said with a smile. He had thrust the blade into his father's chest.

Aldebaran stared at his son with a mix of fury and confusion. Elnath knocked his father to the ground with a blow to the stomach, and he lifelessly fell to the ground.

Resisting the temptation to taunt his dead father any further, he dragged both bodies out of the house. He brought them to the basement of an abandoned house, and sat Shane—who was still unconscious—on a wooden chair.

"What a terrible accident that has befallen you, dear father," he said. He doused his father in gasoline and set it alight. His eyes glowed as the flames rose.

After disposing of the ashes, he turned his attention back to Shane, who had now woken up.

"Where am I...?" the boy asked groggily.

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"You're in a better place now," Elnath replied with the same sweet voice.

A smile formed on Shane's lips as his shoulders relaxed. Elnath slowly approached the boy and sat in front of him.

"This will make you feel better. Be careful not to move," Elnath said. He handed the boy a bottle filled with liquid. "Drink."

Shane greedily drank the contents of the bottle, to Elnath's amusement. But as he was halfway finished, he was hit with an agonising pain that ripped through his chest. He dropped the bottle onto the floor, shattering it. The liquid spilled out and seeped into the ground.

It was cyanide.

Shane looked at Elnath with fear. Elnath's eyes were calm and unmoved by the situation. He started to convulse and thrash around the chair for a brief moment, before all fell still.

Elnath watched as the shadow in Shane's eyes dissipated. Veins turned black until it reached the boy's lips, before a shadowy creature emerged.

Unfazed by the sheer size of the monster, Elnath revealed a sapphire pendant dangling from a golden chain. The creature bellowed as its form started to be pulled into the gemstone. The sapphire's blue hue turned crimson as the shadow was imprisoned inside.

"So this is what Sirius is looking for? Well, he must have a taste of not getting what he wants every once in a while," Elnath whispered. He hid the pendant in his shirt, and left the poor boy to rot.

*********Cornwall, Duke's Lake*********

<>

Arthur woke up in his living room in a daze. His head was throbbing, and his back was sore from the blow.

"Huh?"

He found himself shirtless on the carpet. His jacket was on the floor beside him, while his shirt was tied around his neck like a makeshift noose.

"Weird choice of restraints," Arthur thought. He untied the shirt and stood up. He immediately searched for any items that were stolen.

Nothing seemed to be missing, until he checked his suitcase. The handgun he'd packed was gone.

"Strange, how did they get inside? And why go through all the trouble just to steal a gun?"

He ran around the house, checking for the point of entry. He came across a broken window in the back of the house, in a spot where he couldn't hear it break from where he was.

After confirming that there was no one else hiding in his house, he went to the bathroom to check his wounds. There was a cut on his forehead from his fall, which he bandaged.

"Huh?" he said, noticing something on his chest. There was a scar he'd never seen before, oddly shaped similar to a nine-pointed star.

"This must be new," he wondered. "But how did it scar so quickly?"

Feeling unsafe alone in the house, he locked every door and window, put on another set of clothes, and left for the Crowleys next door.

<<3:02 P.M>>

"So this...mysterious person broke into your house, knocked you unconscious, and didn't steal anything other than a gun?" Azalea asked.

Arthur winced as she cleaned his wounds. "Well, they also left this weird scar."

Azalea examined the star-shaped marking on Arthur's chest. "You're sure that this isn't just a wound that went unnoticed?"

Arthur nodded. "I'm sure of that. There's no way I'd miss a wound of this size."

"You should watch yourself for any unusual changes. Headaches, mood swings, anything like that. Even if you only feel a little bit, call me immediately."

Arthur smiled. Azalea was always like a big sister to him. "I will, thanks."

The faint sound of an infant's cry alarmed both of them.

"Ah, Michael's awake. I'll go get him. Stay here, Arthur."

Azalea went upstairs to get her baby, leaving Arthur to sit down on their couch. A few seconds of silence passed when the front door suddenly opened.

"Arthur? What are you doing here?"

Arthur turned around to see Gabriel—Azalea's husband— come into the house. He was wearing a police officer's outfit under a white coat.

"Ah, someone broke into my house, knocked me out, and stole my gun," Arthur replied, pointing to the wound on his forehead.

"Oh, I see. I'll send a squad to patrol your house and watch for any burglars. In the meantime, make yourself comfortable here."

Gabriel smiled and went upstairs. After a few minutes, Azalea finally came down holding Michael in her arms.

"Look, Michael, this is your uncle," Azalea said to her son.

"Uncle?" Arthur asked.

Azalea laughed. "Fine. You can call him big brother."

Arthur approached the child and smiled. "Hello, Michael."

The baby stared at him intently.

"Want to hold him?" Azalea asked.

Arthur nodded enthusiastically. Carefully, he took Michael from his mother's arms.

"He's heavier than I expected," Arthur commented.

"I thought the same."

Arthur sat back on the couch and Azalea sat beside him.

"So, did you find anything?" she asked. Arthur knew what she was referring to.

"I...I'm not really sure. All the evidence I found points to the Hartrands themselves being the culprits, but I can't seem to think of a motive."

Azalea thought for a moment. "Well, when we investigated the murder of Penelope, Howard, and Alice Woodskiff, we couldn't think of a reason as to why Shane decided to murder them. But one of the murder weapons had his blood and fingerprints on it, no doubt."

"Wait—" Arthur interrupted. "One of them? There were multiple?"

"One of the weapons used in the murder was determined to be a small pocket knife. This should be what Shane used to attack his parents. But the little girl's stab wounds were from a kitchen knife, which was missing from its rack. We suspect that whoever killed him also took the knife."

Arthur was speechless at the nature of the case. "This is very strange. And you haven't turned up anything else?"

Azalea's eyes narrowed, and she leaned closer. "There is something that we've found, but haven't shown publicly," she whispered.

Michael made a small squeak from under them, as if reacting to the sudden secrecy.

"After collecting the blood from the crime scene, the forensic scientists found something...strange. Mixed with the blood of the Woodskiffs, is the blood of a man named Thomas Alec Irving. We tried to search for him, but it seems that he just disappeared without a trace after the murders."

Azalea let silence linger for a few seconds, letting the information sink in.

"You think he influenced Shane to kill, then murdered him afterwards?" Arthur asked.

"That's the theory. But it's strange that no one has seen him in weeks."

"Maybe he wa—"

Their conversation was interrupted by Gabriel calling their names. They rushed upstairs to see the man pacing the hallway with a panicked expression.

"What happened?" Azalea asked.

Gabriel looked at her with saddened eyes. "There was a fire at Mayor Kingfield's mansion in Richmond. Azalea, Arthur...

"The mayor is dead."