The Collins Brothers

Michael Kane walked towards the broken building in the Dirt District. He was with two other Unbroken, called Gerald and Cory Collins.

Gerald was an 8th order ascended of the Devout Follower path, while his brother Cory was a 7th order Solitary Communer of the Monk path.

Their boss Ted sent them to examine the murder site. The police had already arrived to the area and got many strange reports, which caused the Unbroken's suspicion to be raised.

By the latest report, people heard fighting and gunshots coming from an abandoned building. They quickly evacuated the area and got the police involved. Most of their hearings got saved because of this action, but at least a dozen person got hearing damage from a Loud Bullet that has been shot inside the building.

While walking down the closed off street Michael looked at the glass all over the place, it was constantly making crunching noises below their feet.

Looking at the broken windows a shiver went down his spine. He remembered when he shot a bullet like that in close quarters. Even after taking a healing potion his hearing was bad for weeks.

A police officer quickly sent a message to every orthodox church's secret organization, but since the Unbroken headquarters were the closest to the Dirt District, they were the ones to respond first.

The police had already left the building and the area. They only explored the ground and second floor, but it seemed like the fighting happened in the attic. That is exactly where the three of them headed.

Stepping inside the building Michael's eyes instantly noticed two sets of footprints who were probably the intruders. He couldn't quite determine much from them since the police had walked all over it.

With a sigh he tried looking in the other rooms, but all of them were disturbed by the police quite a bit. There wasn't even a single usable print.

"I swear to the Goddess, that one day I will punch the police in the face... Can't they leave the investigation to someone who actually knows what they are doing?" Said Michael and Gerald laughed behind him.

"Well, it's not like they know that there are better investigation methods out there." Said Gerald, causing Cory to make an affirmative grunt. Michael just looked at him with annoyance, then climbed up to the attic.

The brothers haven't followed him. He first had to look for the physical evidence that was left behind, and only after that would they try to find the spiritual remnants, if there was any...

As Michael climbed up his eyes quickly focused on each part of the large room. There were broken wood fragments everywhere and the air smelt like burnt, rotting meat. It wasn't hard to find the source.

There were bodies in pieces all over the ground, but his eyes quickly turned to something else. A small woman was lying dead on the ground, with a lot of bullet holes in her chest.

Michael examined her body thoroughly and he managed to get out most of the bullets that were shot in her.

'If they didn't go through her, that would mean that they were shot from a shitty gun, or she had some kind of defense against bullets... Most of these are ascended bullets, but they didn't seem to be the cause of her death...'

Michael thought about it a bit longer, then noticed a small glint in the woman's right eye socket. Her eye was destroyed in an attack and something was inside of it. Using a large tweezer, he quickly got the item out.

It was a bullet, but it wasn't shot into her head. Instead someone pushed it inside!

He spent the next minute examining the bullet, it had a small, bloody, white pentagram on it, which either meant the person who used it, either had no other bullet... Or...

His eyes turned away from the bullet and body, he looked towards the left where there was something very interesting. The floor was a bit broken and littered with a bunch of different scraps and blood all over it, but his Investigator eyes quickly found the marks he was looking for.

With a few sweeps of his leg, he cleared a large area from debris and he looked down at the large blood circle of otherworldly symbols...

"A Murder Ritual, interesting... So you were a Demon and you were fighting while transformed... wonder who killed you..."

Since he found out that this wasn't an innocent person's murder, there wasn't much else to do, but he still needed to find the culprits. They wouldn't do anything about them, but it was always nice to have an idea of the power Freelancers have.

Michael's eyes went to a spot on the ground where he finally saw the footprints more clearly. Suddenly he facepalmed and groaned.

The footprints were pretty much the same as the ones in Madam Stout's house. He had a pretty good suspicion who the two attackers were, but a pair of footprints wasn't a good enough evidence.

After looking around a bit more he found a woman's shoe, which exactly matched the footprint. He recognized the shoe too, but still he examined the room a bit more thoroughly.

His eyes went back to the dead woman and he realized something...

'If she died because of the bullet in her eye... and someone pushed it in. The person had to be close to the demon... way too close!'

His eyes travelled to the woman's left hand and next to it he found the most condemning evidence. It was a bloody cloth fragment that was different color than what the dead woman was wearing, which meant it came from somewhere else.

Michael grabbed it and placed it next to the shoe. The light brown colored dress arm and the exact same color shoes, caused his suspicions to be right.

"That idiot... I told her not to do anything illegal, what does she do? Kills a fucking Demon... At least she seems to be alive since her body is missing..."

He looked around the room one last time, then shouted down to the brothers.

"I'm done!" Without wasting time they climbed up. Gerald looked a bit disturbed by the state of the room, while Cory was as uncaring as ever. Their eyes noted every detail, including the Murder Ritual and the bunch of corpses.

"So she was a Demon, that makes our job easier. Have you figured out who killed her?" Asked Gerald.

"Yes, but don't worry about it. I will go talk to her tomorrow... I actually supposed to be instructing her in the shooting range!" He said while looking away with a reminiscent expression.

"Ah, the Dancer you always talk about... What was her name again, Mary, Leah, Vera?" Gerald was purposefully acting like he forgot her name to annoy Michael, it was obvious... but he still fell for it.

"It's Veronica and I'm not talking about her that much!" Gerald just laughed and shook his head.

"That was the only topic you spoke about since your date in the morning." This was the first sentence Cory said since they arrived. His voice sounded tranquil, but it also held a bit of mischievous edge to it.

"You two are assholes!" Declared Michael, which caused Gerald to laugh even harder and a small smile to appear on Cory's otherwise neutral face.

Michael looked away a bit embarrassed. He would've never admitted it, but he did find the time spent with Veronica really good, and he was awaiting their next time at the shooting range, especially now that he had a chance to ask more personal questions from her...

He needed to learn more about this murder, and he would definitely use the chance to get to know her better!

"Can we get back to it?... We still have to find out who this woman was!" Said Michael and the brothers turned more serious.

Gerald went a bit farther away from Cory, who on the other hand just knelt down next to the corpse. He reached out and grabbed her face. With closed eyes he began mumbling to himself.

Cory was a Solitary Communer, which made it possible for him to summon a dead person's spirit and control her enough to ask a few questions. It was good most of the time and pretty much danger free, except in some special cases.

While he was doing that Michael walked to the right side of the room. There was a hole in the boards which looked quite interesting and unnatural. The place looked to be some kind of secret space, where a few things were hidden.

There were a few Ethereal Materials most of them pretty expensive, but nothing too special. He put all of them away, then looked to see if anything else was hidden.

At first he thought there was nothing, but then he saw a small secret compartment. He pulled out a small knife and forced the compartment open, then grabbed the only object hidden within.

In his hand was a strange looking doll. It had blood-red hair, like the woman's who lay dead on the floor. The doll's features were also quite similar. At first Michael thought it was an Ethereal Item, but after a quick examination he let go of that idea.

It was definitely something with Ethereal property and not a small amount at that, but it had nowhere near enough to be counted as an Ethereal Item.

He walked to Gerald and showed it to him. He had a similar opinion as Michael, but with a small difference.

"I think it definitely has some purpose and judging by the resemblance between the doll and the woman, it has to relate to her!" Michael looked towards the corpse and nodded in agreement.

Sadly they couldn't figure out its exact purpose since that would require divination and neither of them had access to it. They had to wait for Cory.