Realistic or Modern Orthrus Detective Agency

[OverconfidentMagi]

Mars had been watching the woman intently. Not listening, watching. What is spoken with words is much easier a tool to use for deception than what if spoken in silences and subtle motion. It wasn't that the woman before him lied, in fact to him it seemed that she spoke honestly from start to end, but there was more that she refused to say, or perhaps it was something she herself wasn't consciously aware of maybe? It all his years of interacting with and studying people, he'd never truly managed to understand how the human mind worked. Each example seemed to tick to a slightly different tune than the others. It was both a source of infinite entertainment for him and constant irritation when he needed to get work done. But there was no fix for it, so he had to simply pick what scraps he was able from the conversation and trust his own experience that he wasn't completely off the path.

What that experience told him now was thus: Those weren't the healing tears of someone who had just had their dead daughter returned to them. They were the fearful tears of someone who clung to that notion while a more subtle voice told them they had not. More than the the heartbreak of losing everything already, the woman was afraid that what had been returned to her would be taken away again, or that what had been returned wasn't real at all.

Mars pitied her. But if his job required taking more from this woman, he would do so. Hopefully it wouldn't come to that.

Lionel dragged Mars into his charade, and he willingly played the fool. "Ah, you're right! I swear I'd never remember the stuff if you didn't remind me. If you don't mind madam, where might I find your washroom?" Upon being told the way, Mars stepped around the corner and truthfully followed the direction into the bathroom, a better place than most to start a search. He took from an inner pocked of his coat a small spyglass and raised it to his eye, seeing himself and it in the mirror. Then he slowly turned the band around the far end, and he saw himself put away the item and walk backwards out of the room, plunging it into the darkness of a closed-off unlit space. He turned the band more, going back quickly until light returned. He'd gone back a bit too far, and made no comment as he turned the band the opposite direction until a young girl reached up to turn on the water to wash her hands. He leaned down to inspect her through the spyglass, and again got the impression that she was nothing inhuman. Physically she had none of the signs of demonic possession, though he did look away from the spyglass to scatter some green dust onto the faucet handle where he'd watched her touch. There was no reaction. Likely not a demon then. That was a good sign, though he still didn't know what it was he was actually dealing with here. He raised the glass again and looked closer. No visible signs of necromantic reanimation either, and she certainly wasn't any kind of zombie he'd ever encountered. He didn't rule out a more exotic form of undead, but something told him that wasn't the right tree to be barking up.

He let the vision move forward, and quietly stepped out of the bathroom to follow Abigail as she sat down at the table to eat her breakfast. Eggs, bacon, pancakes. And now Mars felt hungry. Despite not actually being able to smell the food he saw, his imagination did fill that in just to torment him. He turned the ring faster, speeding through the meal and then watching Abigail go up the stairs, likely to her room. He waited for her to come back down and go into the living room with a book in her hands. He couldn't move closer to see its title or contents without being in vision of the real people in the living room. He looked for when the girl's mother went to the door, and Abigail ran back up the stairs with her book to hide away. He watched the stairs for a few more moments and then the spyglass returned to his pocket.

Mars left a lollipop on the stairs for the girl as he walked back into the living room. He thanked the woman of the house and sat down next to his companion, giving Lionel no clue as to what he'd done or learned with that short time.

 

[KamiKahzy]

While Mars was busy investigating (Mason hoped), he began asking the woman some more mundane questions to try and build some rapport. If Mr. Jameson had said or done anything strange in the days before Abigail's 'disappearance', if he had done either in the time between then and his passing, if he'd been contacted or reached out to anyone strange or noteworthy, or if Mrs. Jameson had been contacted or reached out to anyone of a less than reputable nature. Finally Mason asked if she could clarify on who it was that found Abigail when she was first discovered, and if that person was the same one that informed Mrs. Jameson of her appearance. The answers he got were thankfully mundane. It seemed the Jameson's were your average American family and didn't keep any strange or unsavory company, at least not that Mrs. Jameson was aware of. And it was an older gentleman named Randy Marsh that had found Abigail, who had immediately reported to the authorities. Mason didn't see any signs of deceit or evasion in Mrs. Jameson's answers so he assumed she was telling the truth. He made a note to try and contact this Marsh character later for questioning.

Just as he was jotting down that reminder Mars sat back down on the couch. Mason was only able to get a quick glance at him, but from that glance he was unable to see anything telling about his demeanor. He hoped Mars had uncovered something to work with, but for now he returned his attention to the widow. Mason politely asked if Mr. Jameson had some kind of study or personal space to himself, and if he and Mars could inspect it for clues.

 

[OverconfidentMagi]

Mars ran his finger across the edge of the shelf. There was dust. This told him nothing. Only psychopaths actually dust bookshelves. What he was really doing was touching the books. The powdery residue that still covered his fingers from when he'd dusted the bathroom might still react if one of these mundane-looking tomes did contain evil magic. There was no reaction, so he was forced to just skim the prominent titles. Something about war, something about planes, something about boats... so the man had been a war buff. The model bomber sitting on the shelf had already told him as much. Mars opened the drawers of the desk and skimmed a few of the papers that looked like they hadn't been touched in a month. He looked up to watch Lionel for a moment.

"That should be sufficient," he finally said aloud. "Everything here seems in-line with your husband's work and hobbies. Thank you for allowing us to take a look anyway ma'am."

Mrs. Jameson, standing in the doorway, just nodded. It was only after Mars and Lionel left the room that she found her tongue. "It hit me again, that he's gone. I keep telling myself that he's gone, but I keep forgetting. I keep thinking that maybe..."

"He'll come back too?" Mars said it lightly, but he did manage to keep the humor out of his voice. He stepped past the stopped widow. "Doubtful. In my experience, miracles don't seem to like repeating themselves." He thanked her for cooperating and answering their questions and left through the front door. The sky had cleared outside, and the sunlight warmed Mars' too-white skin. He closed his eyes and waited for Lionel.

"So," he spoke when he heard the man walk up, "give it to me, what are we dealing with?"

 

[KamiKahzy]

Mason waited until the door was fully closed behind him, then waited a few extra seconds for courtesy before he answered, "A whole lot of bupkus, that's what." Mason left his cryptic answer to hang in the air while he casually walked down the porch steps and around the surrounding flower patches to retrieve the shovel he had chucked away before entering the Jameson's home. He noted a slight patch of tracks near the spade where an animal might have been resting, but thankfully there was no blood so his conscience was clear. He picked up the tool and hoisted it over his shoulder before returning back to his partner, elaborating his thoughts as he did. "Either the widow's a damn good liar, or she genuinely doesn't know anything. And unless you managed to find something out about the girl...?" Mason looked to Mars at this, who merely shook his head with a bemused smile on his face. Mason sighed before continuing, "Then there's really nothing to be had here. The only lead we have is the name of the man who found Abigail, some 'Randy Marsh'. ...Honestly sounds like a cartoon character if you ask me. He's the next logical lead, but..."

Mason looked back up to the house with an inquisitive glare. Something was wrong about the whole situation. He wanted to chalk up this feeling to simply not knowing more information, but something in him wouldn't let it sit at just that. "...This whole thing doesn't make sense. Why the Jameson's? Sure, they just lost their daughter. But if there was a deal made here then what would the Jameson's, of all people, have to offer? Who gains from Mr. Jameson's death? Or Abigail's life? Mrs. Jameson of course, but she doesn't seem the type to trade her husband for her daughter out of hand."

Mason looked directly at Mars as he stated his hunch, "I think there's a third party involved here that we're not privy to, and I think we need to find them as soon as possible."

 

[OverconfidentMagi]

Mars turned his head around, and only his head, in a way that looked almost painful, to look at Lionel. "So you believe that Abigail died then?" He spun around the rest of himself to face the rookie. "Wouldn't it be simpler if this whole thing was nothing more than human error? Abigail did not die. Her father did. And nothing unusual occurred here at all." He looked back at the house, seeing the face of a child staring at him from an upstairs window. He turned away. "As you said, there is nothing here."

 

[KamiKahzy]

Mason just stared at Mars, completely nonplussed. If this was some kind of test then Mars would quickly find that he was only testing Mason's patience. With the hand holding the shovel across his shoulder Mason began to list off the things wrong with what Mars just suggested. "First off, Mrs. Jameson saw Abigail buried in the cemetery. She and the husband both saw their kid lifeless in the coffin. And I don't know how familiar you are with parental love, but that's not a sight they would just fabricate. Second, there was an obituary on the girl and the father, so a state official declared both of them dead and put it on official record. Third, and probably most damning of all, you wouldn't have taken this case if you didn't think there was something to it. Just..." Mason sighed while he tried to organize his thoughts. "...You don't seem the type to go after 'normal'. Or easy money for that matter. Like the sewer gator incident?"

Mason took a few steps closer to Mars as his voice took on a tone of token acquiescence. "But alright, sure. Let's play devil's advocate for a second. If Abigail didn't actually die then that means that somehow her death was faked, and either she or a damn good duplicate was put in that coffin. And I rather doubt this was a case of human error on the coroner's part. This isn't exactly the 1800's, when catatonic people were just declared dead on the spot. So if her death was faked, then that still means there's a case to be had here. Whether it was supernatural or not, Abigail was declared dead and now she's alive. That's a fact that cannot be disputed, and the reasons behind it are unknown." Mason looked to Mars with his jaw set and a determined look in his eye. "So no, I'm not giving up on this case just yet. Are you?"

 

[OverconfidentMagi]

Mars let out a bark of laughter at Lionel bringing up the alligator incident. That was as fond a memory as any case he'd worked. But the humor faded from his face, all but his eyes, which seemed perpetually illuminated by some amount of black humor. He held up five fingers. "Everything can be lied about. Love is no exception. In fact, it's far easier to lie about than most things. No one actually has any damn clue what love is really, truly, and honestly supposed to look like, and every single person imagines it differently. If one person sees something and thinks it's love, then they will begin to dismiss every imperfection in what they're seeing. They imagine they're just looking through a warped mirror when the truth is it's them that are warped. So don't think that 'love' is basis for anything. Love is an abstract idea, made of the exact same stuff as every other lie." He put down one finger.

"You put far too much credit in what is 'official'. Just because someone is officially dead doesn't mean they're actually dead. People keep officially declaring me dead at a rate of almost once a year, yet here I am standing and talking to you without and desire to eat your brains. If anything, you should distrust most things declared officially." Another finger dropped. "You're correct about me not wanting to waste my own time, but, and this may come as a shock so prepare yourself, I am imperfect. I occasionally make mistakes, and every so often solving a case means disproving the very reason for taking it. There are cases that end with a detective dog unmasking the local mailman. And that's ignoring the possibility that I would give you an entire box of red herrings for your first case just to watch how you go about dealing investigating something that exists purely within your own expectations." He dropped another finger with a smirk.

"That said, you're right that regardless of all of that, the case of figuring out what has actually happened here remains. Natural or un, simple or complicated, it's our job to figure it out." He dropped down to only one finger left. "But you are wrong about one thing. If there is nothing strange happening here, then we are being grossly overpaid, and I have absolutely no complaint against taking easy money. It balances out those cases that get rather out of hand." He was out of fingers. "So no, I'm not quite ready to abandon this case after just getting here. That would be dumb and a waste of my own time. I was more fishing for just how gung-ho you'd be about digging up a little girl's corpse tonight, and considering that's what you've just suggested we do, I'd say we agree."

A cab stopped in the middle of the road beside them. It was the same one they'd taken to get here. Mars must have told the driver to circle the block when he'd paid him.

 

[KamiKahzy]

Mason couldn't fully process the unyielding wall of crazy he was just pummeled with. He didn't even know where to start when the cab pulled up to the roadside and honked the horn. Mason watched Mars walk towards the cab without a second thought, leaving Mason standing there dumbfounded. Then some neuron decided to fire off in his brain and reminded him that, really, Mars' opinion didn't matter too much right now. It was still Mason's investigation until told otherwise, so Mason decided to exercise some of that authority. "Fine," he said in a surly tone, making his way up behind Mars, "But we're interrogating that Marsh guy who found Abigail first. No reason to just sit around on our ass until dusk."

 

[OverconfidentMagi]

The cab door opened, and after moving the obtrusive shovel handle so that he could sit, Mars reentered the vehicle and closed the door behind him. "Much better," Mars said in a satisfied tone, having suddenly asked the driver to pull into a gas station so he could relieve himself. But he hadn't returned empty handed: a folded pamphlet was sticking out of his coat pocket. Once the cab resumed moving down the road - its current destination was the town's library as asking to be dropped off at a cemetery tended to raise questions, especially towards one in possession of a shovel - Mars handed the pamphlet, a regional map, to Lionel. He fished out a sharpie that he'd apparently bought, or shoplifted, along with the map, and tossed that Lionel's way as well.

Tracking down Randy Marsh had proven easy, given the small-town feel this area had combined with his recent appearance in the local news. It had only taken asking three locals before they'd found out the area he lived, his workplace and profession, and that he was regarded generally favorably by those who spoke of him. He'd been at his workplace behind a surprisingly busy mechanics shop; it was the first place they'd looked for the man, which saved some time.

Randy Marsh's story had been easy enough to follow, and Mars at least got no indication that the man was concealing anything. Randy had been driving his truck down the road near the northern side of town when he'd spotted the girl. It had been a nice day, so seeing a kid outside wasn't odd, except she'd been walking kind of slow and came off like she was lost or confused. "And she was stark nude as the day she'd been born!" That more than anything had caught Randy's attention. Purely because of concern, he'd been sure to restate. "Seeing a girl wandering around outside, naked, in the middle of the day... it ain't right. I thought something bad must have happened." He'd stopped and asked the girl her name, more of a first step to asking why she was buck naked outside, but when she'd said her name... "It's a small-ish local town kind of place here, you know? People know each other. I didn't know Abigail personally, but everyone heard about what had happened." He'd called the police right there. It was the smart thing to do, really. No one could fault a person for immediately realizing that their situation was one they were not equipped to deal with. Mars had no love for cops, but in this situation at least, getting them involved had been correct.

There was nothing else remarkable about Randy's story. He'd given Abigail a slightly-clean towel from inside his truck and sat with her on the side of the road until the police got there. He'd given them his statement, as much as there was to note down, and then the police had taken Abigail with them to the hospital. Why the hospital? Well aside from there being many questions surrounding Abigail's sudden health, it was where her mother was already. Mr. Jameson had already been declared dead for over an hour when Abigail had appeared alive and healthy.

"The Jameson's home where Abigail drowned, Maple Street where she was found, the cemetery where she was put in the ground, and the pond just outside town where Mr. Jameson drowned." The western side of town, the northeastern edge, southeast, and north respectively. There was quite a bit of distance between each. The location of Mr. Jameson's death was an outlier. He worked at an office in the center of town, but he'd been on leave since his daughter's death. There wasn't a good reason for him to be outside of town. It wasn't surprising that the initial assumption had been suicide. "Atoning for the death of your daughter by killing yourself in the same way," Mars mumbled to the window, "It's twisted that humans think that makes some sort of sense."


Mars led the way down the street from the library where he'd had the cab drop them off onward towards the local cemetery. He was letting Lionel carry the shovel. Being seen entering a graveyard with a shovel could be seen as uncouth in many cultures, and Mars had reasons for wishing to not sully his own reputation. He came to a sudden stop once the cemetery was in sight. "Say Leo," Mars was speaking unusually serious for once, "I'm curious, what does the Paranormal Affairs Department teach you about places like graveyards?"

 

[KamiKahzy]

Mason's brain had started making theories based on the geography of where these important events had occurred. Unfortunately he couldn't see any obvious patterns that might indicate a premeditated plan or maybe even a magic circle of sorts. Though he did have a hunch that they would have to follow Abigail's trail backwards from where she was found to potentially find where she had 'woken up'. But after their search for Randy Marsh they had run out of time for the day and this... ugh, grave robbing, would have to be their last move if Mason wanted any hope of getting a decent night's sleep.

When they got to the outskirts of the graveyard Mason was stopped by the sudden serious tone Mars had taken with his question. It took Mason a second to recover before he could recollect his training. "Well..." he said in a speculative tone, "Before the department was stood up the Force generally treated them like public parks. Usually quiet, not many people, you'd maybe find a drug dealer or a young couple trying to hook up occasionally. Now though?" Mason looked on towards the graveyard with a hint of trepidation seeping into his voice, "...Considering how much we don't know, standard policy is to be alert and respectful if you have to enter one."

 

[OverconfidentMagi]

Mars turned his head to look back at Lionel, an odd look in his amber eyes. "Come now, don't tell me my cowardly lion is scared of a few ghosts." And just like that his mocking smile returned as if it had always been there. "If we're speaking practically, that isn't wrong. A healthy mix of fear and respect when dealing with the unnatural is only natural. It goes without saying that digging up the dead is considered a bit rude, both to the living and the dead, so I suppose we won't be following proper decorum anyway." The cemetery was open, not even an iron gate to keep other spirits out, so Mars strolled right in.

"This place should have a watcher, but it doesn't seem like they're here. Curious. Asking them directly would have been the easiest method of figuring out what really happened here." Mars looked out over the lines of stone slabs. "I suppose we really will have to check on the body then." He shrugged and walked across the grassy covering that separated his feet from the dead. Finding Abigail Jameson's grave was easy. Besides the whole place being well organized, this grave in particular had reason to be frequently visited both in the past weeks and just the past few days. The grass around the fresh headstone was trampled by many sets of feet. Even directly over the grave itself. "Don't they know that's rude?" Mars shook his head and held out his hand. "Okay, hand me the shovel. I'll break the ground, so whatever retribution the dead might want will hopefully stick mostly to me. Dying from a discount mummy's curse on your first day would be a pitiful way to end your newfound career as a gravedigger."

Mars stabbed the spade into the dirt above a dead girl's grave and left a small hole from his efforts. "Whew, all this digging is real tiring." He wiped imaginary sweat from his brow and tossed the shovel back to Lionel after just that single scoop. "I'll let you take the next shift and tag back in whenever your big, strong arms start to get sore." He grinned and casually took a seat atop the dead girl's headstone.

 

[KamiKahzy]

Mason caught the shovel as it was tossed to him, ire clear upon his face. And just as Mars had taken a seat atop the headstone an idea occurred to Mason. This was still 'his' case, wasn't it? He could (and SHOULD really) make Mars do the dirty work. Lord knew he probably wouldn't get the chance ever again, and some part of him really wanted to make Mars squirm a bit. But... more thought on the matter stayed his hand. Mars seemed to be much more alert to supernatural threats, and considering what they were doing, where they were and what they were investigating it seemed more prudent to keep him on watch rather than have his nose in the dirt.

So Mason sucked it up, kept his mouth shut and got to work. He already knew Mars wasn't going to 'tag in', so he resigned himself to the workout of digging up a little girl's grave. The only consolation he could see is that this would be quicker work than the standard 'grave drill' he was run through back in the Marines. A girl's coffin was smaller after all, less square footage to move.

 

[OverconfidentMagi]

"That's enough," Mars suddenly stopped Lionel's steady work. "I'll do the rest." He took the shovel from Lionel and swapped places with him in the hole. Mars had to give it to him, he could really work efficiently when he put his mind to it. The hole was already deep enough that the casket should be close. That was why Mars had chosen to step in. If digging up a grave was likely to draw a spirit's ire, then breaking open the body box it stood to reason was more offensive. Lionel didn't seem like he had the knowledge or experience to get himself out of a curse, so Mars was serious about committing the worst offenses himself to shield his young grasshopper from that headache.

Mars took a cellphone out of his jacket pocket and handed it to Lionel before he started digging. "Keep an eye on that. Tell me if it rings. Password is 2442 if you want to play games while I toil down here."

 

[KamiKahzy]

Mason took the cellphone without much ado. Frankly he was surprised Mars even bothered to help out with the digging at all. But it gave his shoulders a chance to recover so he took the reprieve gratefully. And now with Mars' password, he couldn't help but take the opportunity to do some snooping. He dreaded what he might find, but damn if his curiosity wasn't going to win out in the end. Mason input the password and watched as the home screen came to life. A jumble of colors and shapes filled the screen, uniquely chaotic in their arrangement. It was strange, but something about it all seemed impossibly familiar, like a pleasant memory he'd forgotten.

Mars had begun shoveling more dirt out of the hole Lionel had started... or rather taken over, since technically he'd started digging the hole, when it occurred to him that he hadn't told Lionel a rather important step of unlocking his phone. "Oh right, it's 2442 and then swipe down without looking. That bit's important... aaand you already got hit." Mars let out a sigh and climbed back out of the hole. Lionel was standing there stupefied by the hypnosis pattern playing across the phone screen. Mars swiped the screen without looking and jumped back into the hole while Lionel's mind spun back up to thinking speed. "As I was saying, swipe down before looking." He returned to digging.

Mason shook his head vigorously when he realized what had happened. He wasn't exactly thrilled at being caught like that, but he was impressed at the kind of security Mars was able to put onto his phone. He honestly considered asking if he could get that program on his phone as well. Regardless he had his mind back and, despite the sense of shame at failure, he decided to go back to his original plan. Following Mars' instructions properly this time Mason was able to get past the hypno-screen and into the home page.

Mason wasn't sure what he was expecting to see, but it wasn't the normal screen that he got. No weird background picture, no overly weird apps or folders either. Some cursory swiping showed Mars' phone to be relatively straightforward and organized, which was a stark contrast to his office. And, ironically enough, Mason couldn't find any games downloaded. So he was all but convinced that Mars was giving Mason free reign to snoop at his leisure, which meant that there wouldn't be anything particularly useful to find. Still, he kept looking out of curiosity and a sheer lack of anything better to do.

In the contacts section Mason found quite a lot more entries than he was expecting. Mars didn't seem the 'networking' type. But he supposed the man did affect a lot of people directly (or indirectly), so maybe this was more of a necessity thing. Still, the fact that most of the contacts devolved into pet names or simple emojis seemed on brand for Mars. One in particular stood out though, a tiny little lion emoji. Mason cast a sidelong glance at Mars in the grave before he tentatively opened the entry. And sure enough, there was Mason's full name, his address, and even his blood type? Mason had to think for a second if it was correct, but yes, Mars had somehow figured out his blood type and put it on his phone. Mason didn't quite know how to feel about that, and since Mars appeared to be finishing up in the hole anyway he tucked the phone into his pocket while keeping a hand on it in case it rang.

There wasn't much digging left for Mars to do; Lionel had done most of the work already. The casket was right where it should be, all Mars had to do was clear out the dirt from around it so he could crack the thing open. He already had a good idea what he'd find inside at this point, but he still needed to look. The shovel left the hole, landing in the dirt piled next to Abigail's grave. "Hey Leo," Mars called up, "I said this is your case, so I won't tell you to, but this might be a good time for you to take a short walk." He wasn't joking or smiling right now. He'd been more serious than usual ever since entering the graveyard actually. Even Mars knew how to read the mood when he chose to it seemed. So his suggestion to Lionel wasn't meant to belittle the man at all, it was a rare moment of Mars being considerate for another person's feelings. There was no reason Lionel needed to see what was inside this box.

Mason peered over the side of the hole to look at Mars. His eyes were set, and even though he didn't feel overly great about what they were doing he'd seen and done far worse things during his lifetime. "I'm a former cop and prior Marine, Mars. Ignorance has never done me any favors." Mason tilted his head towards the coffin and said flatly, "Open 'er up," before settling in and trying to keep an open mind about what he might see.

Mars just shook his head. That wasn't why he'd offered Lionel an out. Oh well, he wasn't nice enough to offer a second time. He ran his hand over the side of the casket and muttered a few words. The seals holding the casket shut released, and the effect was immediate. There was a hiss of air escaping the sealed container, and even Mars, who'd done this before and knew what to expect, had to hold his tongue to avoid throwing up in his mouth. The putrid stench of human decomposition clogged the air, made even more pungent by having been bottled up. Three weeks since Abigail Jameson had died... yup, smelled about right.

The smell was awful, and Mason did have to close his eyes and hold his jacket up to his nose to try and fight it off. But this wasn't anything he hadn't experienced before, and after he had his moment to compose himself Mason was looking right back down into the hole. He couldn't see anything that shouldn't have been there. A putrefied body that, by Mason's uneducated estimation, looked about three weeks old. Mason called down into the hole, "Gross, but that tracks with the official reports. Do you see anything off? Any clue if this is actually Abigail's remains? Maybe signs of tampering beyond our own?"

Mars inspected the corpse. "At a glance I'd say it's probably her. Looks more or less like the pictures, and like the girl I saw in the house. I haven't heard anything about another girl around her age dying or going missing in this area, but you never can be sure. People appear and disappear more often than you'd care to know." He reached down to touch the body and then looked at his fingers. No reaction from the residue there, so still no signs of demonic powers at work here. That was always his first guess whenever the dead got back up without a hunger for brains. "The casket was still sealed, so it couldn't have been opened since it was put into the ground at least."

Mason's mind was attempting to put the pieces together as Mars rattled off the facts. They were very likely looking at Abigail Jameson's corpse in the ground, and it hadn't been touched since the funeral. Unfortunately without a DNA test there was no way to know for sure if this was indeed Abigail Jameson or some other poor soul. Mason made a note of trying to collect a viable sample before they left, he still had some favors back at the Department he might be able to cash in. Maybe.

After a second of searching his pockets Mars fished out two coins. They looked like normal quarters. He placed one on each over the dead girl's eyes, said a few words, and stood back up. "Now we just wait a minute for the memories to sink in," was all he offered as a half-assed explanation for his actions. "No calls?" Mars didn't see the phone he'd handed off to Lionel.

Mason reached into his pocket and pulled out the phone, checking the screen and seeing no new alerts. Mason shook his head and offered the phone back to Mars. "Are you expecting someone?"

"Forty-six... forty-seven... Huh? Oh yes, I'm thinking she'll be calling soon. Probably. Might not. Fifty-fifty odds maybe. Fifty-eight... fifty-nine... sixty." Mars finished counting out a minute while he waited. "That should be long enough for a short peek." He picked the coins from the corpse's eyes and popped them on top of his own. He looked around with the quarters blocking his vision. "Huh, well that's pretty definitive I'd say." He hit the back of his head with one palm to knock the coins off his face and into his other hand. He offered the coins to Lionel if he wanted to see for himself, but the gesture implied he didn't particularly care if Lionel did or didn't.

Mason took the coins with a bit of hesitation, less from the fact that he was being asked to wear coins on his eyes and more the fact that it was Mars offering them to him. But magic was weird by any standard, so he was willing to play along. Mason placed the coins on his eyelids and carefully tried looking around so as not to knock them off by accident. What he saw was, presumably, the victim's last moments alive. Mason could see the ripple of water, the distortion of light through a fluid, and what he could only assume was a bright blue pool cover.

Mason took the coins off his eyes and handed them back to Mars. He sat down on the mound of dirt they had excavated and fished around in his jacket for his cigarettes. After lighting up he offered the box to Mars before putting it away. One long drag and an exhale of gray smoke left Mason's mouth before he started to talk. "So we've got a young corpse, presumably Abigail's, right where it's supposed to be. No tampering before hand, and whoever is buried here probably drowned in a pool. Circumstantially this implies that Abigail did die as reported, is buried here, and that the girl at the Jameson house is not in fact Abigail. But there's no evidence to confirm for sure this person is Abigail, short of a DNA sample anyway. ...I might be able to help with that. If I take some of her hair that is. And... well, we'd need a sample from the girl at the Jameson's to compare it against." Mason looked up at Mars from his dirt mound perch as he took another quick drag from his cig. "Ahhhh... I don't suppose you nabbed something of the girl's while we were at the house?"

 

[OverconfidentMagi]

"Are you implying that I might have taken advantage of my trip into the house's bathroom to steal an indecent article of clothing belonging to a young girl?" Mars recoiled from Lionel in mock disgust. "I had no idea you thought so low of me. How mean. I'll let you know I'm an outstanding... upstanding?... citizen!" The night's silence could only stand that blatant lie for a few short seconds before Mars laughed at his own bold claim. "Well maybe not that, but no, I didn't take anything from the Jameson home."

Mars checked the cellphone again. "You're thinking in the right direction, but your thinking is too mundane. Hard evidence isn't exactly easy to come by when dealing with the unexplainable. Hunches and assumptions will often be the best you'll be able to come up with, so you'll need to learn to trust your gut on certain things." Mars gestured down at the corpse. "This aromatic chrysanthemum here definitely died from drowning. There's little doubt about that with such a reliable eyewitness report. I'm inclined to agree with you that this is indeed Abigail's body, but that leaves us with two important questions to figure out." Mars held up one finger on each hand. "The first is about the currently alive girl calling herself Abigail. Who, or what, is she really?" H swung his finger like a gun to point at Lionel. "But! I think it's premature to assume that she isn't Abigail. Tell me, out of any person living or dead, who would you say knows the most about you?"

 

[KamiKahzy]

Mason wasn't sure what Mars was getting at yet, and that somewhat irked him. So he decided to play along and hopefully pick up on what Mars was insinuating. "Well, no one can ever know my own thoughts better than me."

 

[OverconfidentMagi]

"Nobody likes a pedant," Mars said. "The answer for the majority of your species would be their mother. Since you spoke with Mrs. Jameson more than myself, did you get the feeling that she doubted the identity of the girl claiming to be her daughter?"

 

[KamiKahzy]

Mason took a drag from his cigarette, thinking hard on that statement. "...Maybe... In fact, probably. She just lost her daughter, then her husband, then she gets her daughter back miraculously? She's so terrified of losing her again that she's probably ignoring any warning signs she sees. But... there was definitely that doubtful fear present." Mason drew from his cig one last time before putting it out in the dirt mound beneath him. He looked as his watch, looked to the dirt mound, and then looked to Mars. "I think we need to see if we can find the exact place the girl 'woke up', follow her trail back from where Marsh picked her up and look for clues. But tomorrow, because its gonna be dark by the time we put this dirt back." Mason slapped the mound beneath his rump once to emphasize his point.

 

[OverconfidentMagi]

"Hmm..." Mars' eyes narrowed slightly in thought. "Very well," he said, retracting the finger that pointed at Lionel. "We'll do that. In the morning, we'll try and find where Abigail's double wandered out of."

"Leaving the possibility that the girl in the Jameson home isn't Abigail for now, there is the matter of the second question." Mars kicked the side of the casket. "Where is this dead girl's ghost? With all the desecration going on here, you'd think her ghost would have decided to show up and haunt us. I don't know about you, but I don't feel particularly haunted right now. You know it's kind of depressing to be ignored by a dead girl."

 

[KamiKahzy]

Mason couldn't do anything but shrug at that one. "I haven't dealt with very many ghosts, so of the two of us I think you're the expert here. You tell me, is it normal for ghosts to show up when their bodies are desecrated? As far as I know ghosts were always a rarity rather than the norm."

 

[OverconfidentMagi]

Mars looked at Lionel like he'd grown a second head. Though actually such a sight probably wouldn't have gotten as much of a reaction from Mars as what Lionel had just said. "Ghosts... rare?" He dragged his fingers down his face in despair. "Oh mon chéri, what do those incompetents waste their time filling your head with?" He let out a deep groan. "There are billions of you emotionally-unstable hairless monkeys crowding this little spinning rock. What makes you think it'd be any different after death? If anything, you should be more questioning about why ghost stories aren't more common than they are." Mars looked towards the declining sun. "Humans have no predators. You tell yourselves this so that you can sleep soundly. For the most part, it's a true enough lie. But once you go and lose your body..." He grinned wickedly, but the smile fell when he breathed out. "I did think that maybe something had passed through and emptied this place of its dead souls, but that feels wrong. Or rather, this place should feel wrong if something evil had swept through. It's hard to describe accurately, but you'd know the feeling. Like a place is inherently unwelcoming. A place that should be crowded but is empty. Like an indent where something should be but isn't. Even if you can't see it, most people can sense evil at some inherent level."

"But even if there are things that like snacking on dead souls, people die way too often. Ghosts are about as common as street signs, and like street signs, very few of them are ever any use. Useless ghosts are a dime a dozen. The rare kind are like stop signs, they have a reason for being here. Those are the ones worth communing with if you need to speak with the dead. The trick isn't finding ghosts, it's getting one to bother answering your questions. The dead aren't exactly supposed to interact with the living. As for the actual mean-spirited spirits that tend to ignore that taboo... well, let's just say they're not rare, but they tend to attract attention from the aforementioned 'bad things'. Well, I'm sure I'll get a good laugh out of locking you in a room with an angry poltergeist before too long, so I'll save some of my sagely wisdom for after that. More fun for me that way." Mars winked at Lionel playfully before looking down and giving the casket another kick. For all his talk about desecrating the corpse, so far he hadn't actually done anything to the body beyond lightly touching it and using the coins on its eyes. "But even a young useless ghost should have come out if its body was dug up." He lapsed into thought while staring at the decaying girl.

 

[KamiKahzy]

Mason thought for a second, mostly in an attempt to try and ignore Mars' disrespect for a young girl's remains. So according to Mars the girl's ghost should have likely come out once her body was disturbed. Since she hadn't this meant that the ghost wasn't here. Mason didn't know much about how ghosts worked, but even if the spirit was 'away' somewhere it likely had a very strong connection to its remains. So once those were exhumed the ghost aught to know. So why didn't it show up?

A few possibilities came to mind. The ghost had moved on, or maybe it had even been taken or dispersed somehow. Or maybe...

"...Maybe she's scared." Mason looked at Mars much more seriously now. "If her ghost wasn't taken or displaced somehow, maybe it ran. Ran from... whatever could clear out a graveyard of its tenants." Mason gestured to the rest of the headstones surrounding them for emphasis, which now stood deafeningly silent to him upon reflection.

 

[OverconfidentMagi]

"Like I said, it doesn't feel like something evil has been here. But it's not impossible. This is important," Mars looked Lionel in the eyes, "When dealing with the unnatural, never dismiss the impossible. Demons, gods, and unknown powers in every color laugh at impossible all the time. When dealing with these things, the best we can do is guess, sometimes based on what we think is evidence, more often we're just taking shots in the dark and wondering if those powers shaped reality to match only after we've supplied a convenient excuse."

"But it's not very likely a ghost could have wandered, I mean ran, off." Mars covered a yawn. He was still feeling the lingering effects of all the sleep he'd missed over the past week. And he was getting sick and tired of cemeteries. "Freedom of movement," he said with his mouth still covered. "You, owning a physical body, can interact with anything you want to in this physical world. You can punch me in the face, take a walk down the street, hop in the bar and get drunk and piss on an alley wall. You take that much for granted. Ghosts, speaking broadly, have lost the right to interact with the physical world. Don't make the mistake of thinking a ghost is just an invisible, intangible human. Their existence isn't that convenient. If you want to run away, you move your legs and go wherever you want. A ghost can't do that."

"Ghosts can almost always be found in one of three places," Mars' voice shifted into slightly-condescending lecture mode. "The easiest is near their body. It's by far the most familiar place to a soul, so even if they're separated from it, people tend to still want to hang around it. So hospitals, morgues, graveyards, tombs, and the like are the most likely places to find a ghost if you're looking for a particular one. Sometimes a ghost does split from its rotting meat-body and just hangs around the place it died. Traumatic or violent deaths, things like car crashes, sometimes murders... when the ghost can't remember or doesn't want to accept what's happened, those ones tend to just stay where they are. They're like kids lost in a market," Mars laughed while speaking of the dead. "The third place is more broad, since it also covers the more active 'haunting' types. But even they tend to stick to a specific noun - an object, person, or place - that was important to them before dying. Not much would do it for a six year old girl I don't think. Before you ask, no, the house wasn't haunted. Unless Abigail's ghost is still camping out where the pool was, but I doubt that's-"

The sound of a phone ringing interrupted Mars. It was, of course, Mars' phone, currently in Lionel's possession. Mars' eyes lit up and he held out his palm.

 

[KamiKahzy]

Mason was absorbing Mars' explanation when he felt the phone ring. He quickly took it out and handed it to Mars, but not before he took a quick peek at the display to see who it might be.

 

[OverconfidentMagi]

The call wasn't a random string of characters or emoji, so it wasn't anyone on Mars' contact list. The number was local, actually. Mars put on a smile and accepted the call.

"H-hello?"

"Hello Abigail," Mars answered the hesitant voice on the other end.

"Um... are you the person who was at my house? The white person?"

"Yup," Mars said cheerfully. "That was me. My name is Mars by the way. I'm happy to finally get to hear your voice. I knew from your cute face that you'd have a cute voice to match."

The line was quiet.

"Abigail, how's your mom?"

"Mommy is taking a nap. She was really tired."

Mars nodded. Mrs. Jameson had looked tired, as was to be expected with everything she must have on her mind. So it seemed that Abigail had chosen not to tell her mother about the message and phone number that a stranger had delivered to her wrapped around a lollipop. What a precocious little girl, Mars thought. Hiding things and going behind her parent's back already. She'll be trouble in a few years for sure.

"I'm sorry to hear that. I hope she's feeling better soon."

"Um... can you?"

"Help?" Like he'd written to her. "Yes, I think I can help your mom and you both." While speaking to a dead girl, Mars motioned towards Lionel's pocket and mimed taking something out then raising his fingers to his mouth and blowing out.