6 Scene of the Crime

Sardi felt like he was a criminal returning to the scene of a crime as he walked slowly out of an alley and approached the battle site. He really must have been passed out for a while, because the crime scene mages were loading the bodies into carts. Each body was wrapped in a black shroud, and a visible magic seal was on them. Sardi was told this protected them from rotting, and from people tampering with them to cover their magical signatures.

'My magic is all over this place… though how will I explain how Shinra and I did so much damage? He is only a zombie after all. I'm probably the only person who knows how … capable he is,' Sardi thought. Capable was a strange word to describe the shadow of death he'd witnessed before he fell unconscious. 'Shinra, you have a lot of explaining to do.'

As the crime scene team was busy cleaning up, it was easy for Sardi to spot the Sheriff in charge. He was a large muscled man with very dark skin, a bald head, and a deep scowl on his face as he looked at Sardi.

"Deputy! What are you doing at my crime scene? Don't you have paperwork to do, or toll bridge duty?," the large Sheriff barked at him. Deputies didn't have many fun jobs to do when they weren't working directly with a Sheriff. Manning the toll booth was one of the worst.

"Sir, Deputy Sardi reporting in. I was a witness to the attack here." Sardi saluted crisply. He could tell this Sheriff cared about the proper way to address superior officers. 'Witness….,' Sardi had to fight to keep a grin off of his face. Saying he was a witness sounded like the kind of misdirection Shinra would pull.

The Sheriff just stared at him for a long moment. "Deputy Sardi. Witness, eh?" Sardi wasn't sure, but it almost looked like the man's lip curved up in a smile, almost. "Judging by initial forensics, you must have witnessed it up close and personal."

It was then that Sardi noticed the bright green sigil glowing on his lapel. It matched several winding weaves covering the entire street. He'd been forensically tied to the scene already.

"You could say that I'm a key witness, Sir."

"Then why don't you walk me through the events leading up to this… incident?" The words sounded polite, but the man was all business.

"Of course, Sir. I just assumed Deputy Shinra would have told you everything by now?" Sardi had to be careful, he didn't know what Shinra had said yet, and they couldn't reveal anything about the Vampires. And he didn't really want to explain why they were in the Palace either.

"I left Deputy Shinra back at the Sheriff's department," Crews said. He stopped to look around himself, at the broken cobbles, the scorch marks and the pools of blood. "Perhaps I should have brought him here for a proper debrief, but he said you were looking for other assailants and securing the scene. Did you find anyone else? We've been here for over 2 hours."

"No Sir. I did a quick search in an expanding circle of the area, but there was no one that seemed related to these men." Sardi had an internal sigh of relief. If Shinra just reported the incident, and they ran here, then Sardi could control the story and just tell him the details later.

"Deputy First Class Shinra, and myself, were returning from the Northern Highroads section of the city when we noticed some men that appeared to be following us. The streets were busy there, and we thought that we might have been overreacting because of the mugging attempt from this morning." Sardi started with. Sheriff Crews' face was impassive, so he couldn't tell if he believed him so far, or not.

"We kept going, planning to return to the department to further debrief from the morning's incident. The men did seem to be following us still though, and the foot traffic was getting thinner. We decided to run."

"Why did you do that, Deputy? Surely you could have stuck to the main streets and found a patrolling Sheriff or guardsman?" Crews asked.

Sardi looked around at the remnants of the recent carnage. It was hard to believe, despite his intense martial training and combat, that today was the first time he'd killed anyone. It was a big thought that threatened to push everything else out of his head. 'Get a grip! I'm a warrior. I'll have time to worry about the bodies on the ground once I'm sure that mine is safe,' he thought. He gave his head a small shake and faced the Sheriff.

"They outmanoeuvred us. We thought we were running away from the ambush, but instead we ran into it. Whoever they were, they organised." Sardi said. He didn't share that they were with the vampires, trying to lead them to Shinra's apartment, and that the attackers just caught up with them. Sardi had to be careful, there were large chunks of the fight he wasn't a part of, and he couldn't tell them that Shinra had killed more than he had, that would open them up to too many questions. Sardi needed them not to look into his background.

"And then, somehow, outmanoeuvred and trapped, two deputies fought and killed 12 dangerous criminals…?" Crews said, turning his head, as if to take in the remnants of the carnage around them. "Oh! And one of those Deputies was a zombie!" He moved up close to Sardi, and leaned down so their noses almost touched. "You expect me to believe that?" He threw his arms up, as if in outrage. Then stalked around a particularly large puddle of blood, before whipping back to face Sardi. "The Crime Analysts are going to go over this scene carefully. Are they going to find out you had help? Help you're afraid to admit to because you're a criminal mole planted into the Deputies' office?

Sardi almost laughed, but more in surprise than anything. Sheriff Crews' guess was wrong, but, in a way, Sardi was planted in the Sheriff's department. So many responsibilities. He had trouble keeping up with them all.

"Do you think this is funny, Deputy?"

"No sir! I just wished we had had help when the attack happened," Sardi said.

Crews opened his mouth, clearly about to press Sardi for more details, when a strong voice cut through the space and halted him.

"I'm more interested in hearing how our two Deputies did survive, not coming up with conspiracy theories. That hardly seems productive. Wouldn't you agree, Sheriff Crews?", Wintersbane said, his voice pleasant, but the rebuke was clear.

"Sheriff Wintersbane, this is my crime scene," Crews said, as he turned towards Wintersbane's voice. He stopped short when he saw Wintersbane's military uniform.

Wintersbane ran his hand down the front of his uniform, self consciously, Sardi thought.

"Ah, well, for now I'm on a special Military assignment, coordinating with all branches of protective and policing services. So yes, this is your crime scene, but we, all the services, are very interested in the results of YOUR investigation. So, please continue," Wintersbane finished. The warmth of his smile seemed genuine, but Crews straightened up at the rebuke in the words.

"Deputy Sardi, please tell me… us, how you and the zombie Deputy survived an attack by 12 men," Crews asked. He glanced at Wintersbane, who stood by looking unconcerned. He was watching Sardi.

"Well, Sirs, the whole scene was very chaotic, as you can imagine." Sardi had decided how he was going to play it. He just needed to share enough truth that they would fill in the blanks themselves in a way that was plausible to them. "Looking back, the only reason we survived was because their first attack missed, and created a tonne of smoke and dust in the air. It let Deputy Shinra and I face them one at a time, and they couldn't target us well with their spells."

"So you slaughtered 12 violent attackers, one at a time?" Crews said, the scepticism in his voice was clear.

"Well, Shinra helped too. He is a very strong physical fighter, so the conditions were ideal for him," Sardi offered.

"Ok, so the zombie helped with one or two, and you managed to get the drop on over 10 people. I find this hard to swallow, Deputy," Crews said. His voice was getting lower, and he was leaning into Sardi aggressively.

Sardi noticed that Wintersbane's face flashed a rueful smile when he mentioned Shinra's strength. 'He knows something about Shinra… maybe I need to compare notes with him,' Sardi thought.

"Well, it wasn't that simple, but, basically, yes. I haven't shared this with the other deputies, but my family is a distant relation to the Emperor, and we have some duties and connections that come with that privilege. The Captain, and all the other executives of the Sheriff and Police forces know about it, of course." Sardi shared.

"That is interesting Deputy, but what does that have to do with you and Shinra being attacked?" Wintersbane chimed in. Crews looked annoyed at the question, but didn't say anything.

"It is relevant because I have a few highly effective charged magical items on my person at all times. They were gifts designed to save me in exactly this kind of situation." He took a big breath and looked up at the sky. "We still almost died, there were 12 of them, but they were confident in their numbers, and didn't expect the no-cast firepower I had. That is how we survived, Sirs." Sardi looked at them respectfully and directly. By bringing up his Imperial connections, it was left unsaid that they could only probe so far before causing trouble.

Crews and Wintersbane stared at each other for a long moment, and then nodded faintly.

"Thank you Deputy. You'll need to provide a recorded statement when you're back at the precinct. If you'll excuse me, I need to finish closing this scene." Crews said. Then he saluted Wintersbane and walked away.

Sardi thought this would be a good moment to slip away himself. He needed to find Shinra and get back to the Vampires. He turned to go, already planning out a route to avoid the analysts and get back to the precinct fast. He didn't think all this activity and scrutiny was good if they were going to keep the Vampires hidden.

Then a strong hand landed on his shoulder.

"Could you spare a few moments, Deputy?" Wintersbane asked.