“If I had to guess, this would be the ‘seed’ of conduit.” Laura Jensen examined the heavily enchanted glass in which they placed the silver energy bubble that held the shadow two headed centipede creature: “So what we just saw was, you know, an ‘offline copy’, instead of a ‘live feed’. And your defeating and killing the conduit clearly upsets it, enough to forcefully come back to life again and try to attack you.”

“Well, if it was, I’m not even sure we could handle it.” Jason shrugged: “But this is good, at least we could say that the precinct is cleansed and safe now.”

“Wait, what do you mean by your killing the conduit?” Detective Vandez, who was conscious now and drinking a mug of hot tea, asked with a confused look on her face.: “The captain said you saved everyone and broke them out of the - limbo thing. But he did not mention - ”

“Yeah, to be fair I was not in the right state of mind - ” Jason sighed as he put another layer of sealing spell on the jar: “Long story short - the one who created the limbo, or the one central medium the fallen god created the limbo through, or with, was this conduit, and inside that limbo, it manifested before me, and I fought and defeated it. ”

“Oh, so you were the one who sliced him open like this.” Laura Jensen continued with her examination of Laura Jensen’s pulses, heart rate and pupils and responded with a “sheesh” facial expression: “What did the manifestation look like in the limbo, a giant obnoxious evil bagel?”

“A human-shaped monster, who seemed to be controlling the limbo from its core, and that giant obnoxious evil bagel blinded my eye.” Jason shook his head, then looked to Detective Vandez and explained: “And when I slew it, the limbo started to crumble, and when we got out safely, I found out that some perp in the holding cell was dead along with the rest of the inmates, but this one’s sliced open from the center, the same way I defeated the monster in the limbo.”

“So you’re saying, this - conduit, thing.” Detective Vandez rubbed her temples using her thumb and middle finger from left hand: “It’s the one that created the limbo?”

“Maybe, maybe not.” Jason said: “Earlier that day when I came here, I sensed something wrong coming from the evidence room, and apparently your officers had logged a small statue connected to that fallen god into evidence, right around the same time where that perp was being held - ”

“So it’s connected.” Aimee and Detective Vandez said at the same time.

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“Or planned.” Laura Jensen looked into Detective Vandez’s pupils: “I don’t have too much knowledge about that fallen god - any theories on what it wants with the people here?”

“Souls, spirits, pain and suffering.” Jason wrote two paper sigils using two pieces of document papers scattered on the ground: “Apparently it’s that scum’s power source.”

“Okay, to be honest, not that surprising.” Laura Jensen sighed and patted Detective Vandez on the shoulder: “You should be good, if you still feel weird, or have really bad nightmares, just contact Jason.”

“Thanks.” Detective Vandez continued rubbing her temples: “What - what’s next?”

Just this moment, Jason’s phone rang, and it was Caroline.

—------------

“So, where to first?” When the car drove away from the entrance of Xianshi Inn, Thomas asked Caroline.

“I haven’t been following up much, you are the detective, so you lead.” Caroline shook her head and chuckled: “And you are the student of THE Josephine Wong, you have more access to this kind of intelligence than I do.”

“Alright, fair, fair.” Thomas smiled and shrugged: “Then we go to that bar you leveled first, then that factory and apartment complex, then we go to a field office of the Division, Ms. Wong told me that there are some documents prepped for us to aid us in our investigation.”

“Good. Go.” Caroline nodded: “Can you brief me on what you’ve learned? What’s up with lycans and vampires, and what kind of connections do they have with the cult of Bleeding Daggers?”

“Ah, so you DO know something.” Thomas turned left then stopped at a red light: “Well, what I’ve heard is the most common theory is that Bleeding Daggers, being one of the OG supernatural cult slash gangs, has many members that are not human - it might be some of the less popular sections of the lycans and vampires - the ‘Impure Bloods’.”

“And these ‘Impure Bloods’ would be those that are not pure blood lycans or vampires?” Caroline asked.

“Kinda cliche’ isn’t it?” The light turned green, and Thomas accelerated and drove through the intersection before them, the shadow of a thick piece of cloud moved along with the car and blocked off a lot of the sunlight that could have been enjoyed by the two: “When I get into the files and dossier Ms. Wong gave me, I could not shake off the feeling that the whole vampire and lycan society just functions like human gangs, in many ways more prejudicial, more bloodline obsessed and more terribly violent and gruesome, because it is harder to kill them.”

“Well, I could imagine so. How many gang members would lump your arm off and swallow it?” Caroline looked at the side of Thomas’ face and smiled.

“Huh, not many.” Thomas took a look at Caroline and said: “But I haven’t heard of any law enforcement officers or agents badass enough to destroy a perp with one arm either.”

“Crack!” A sudden thunder crack lit up the sky, after which, small pieces of hail started dropping from the sky.

“Fuck, I just got it washed and polished.” Thomas cursed as he turned on the windshield wiper to wipe off the ice flakes in front of him.

“Hey, Thomas, I was wondering…”

“Yeah?”

“I was wondering, do you wanna grab a coffee when this is over?”

“Well, didn’t we just have coffee at the inn … oh, I mean yeah! I’d love to!”