The Majors, Who Let the Demon Out? *under rewrite*

Chapter 14: The Holy T Days

~Scott~

"What the hell is taking him so long...?"

Gemini's murmur broke the silence that had simultaneously seemed to have lasted both forever and a second.

"Probably got distracted." Pearl replied, running her finger along the nearly invisible grooves between the tiles. "It's Fwhip, after all."

"Maybe I should go check on him.." Gemini said, brushing off Pearl's statement.

"Uh, don't think that'll be necessary—" Katherine pointed out, jerking her finger to the left of us. My ear twitched, picking up on the running footsteps, just before I looked up to see the Count sprinting after us, a bright yellow envelope pinched between his side and his arm.

"I HAVE ITTT!" He said as he skidded to a halt about a foot away from where we were all sat on the ground, waiting for him. He dropped between me and Gem, forcing me to scoot a couple inches to the right to avoid bumping knees with him, clumsily ripping the flap of the folder open.

"What on Empiria—" I had started, cut off as Fwhip slammed a stack of papers onto the ground, within the small circle that had been formed by Katherine, Pearl and Shrub shifting to sit closer.

"What is that?" Katherine asked nearly simultaneously, leaning over the paper, and casting a shadow over the words emblazoned beneath the finger Fwhip pressed against it.

"Even more proof." He stated simply. I squinted, struggling to read the words and see the image clearly. But Fwhip moved a second later, snatching the infant's picture from off my leg and slapping it down next to his so-called "proof".

On the paper he had brought out, from within the folder, was a girl. A girl with tangled brown hair that reached her shoulder blades, two pointed ears just barely visible from underneath the matted mess. Beneath a couple curls that managed to escape, was a marking that was nearly as pale as her skin, of a moon balanced on its side, tips pointed upwards towards her hairline. Her chapped lips formed a smug smirk, muted blue eyes crinkled in mischief, the irises of her eyes set unusually far upwards, halfway hidden beneath her eyelid.

Down her chin was another marking, and sprawled across her cheeks were large, nearly black freckles. They were layered the thickest where her scalp melded into her cheekbone, even visible going down her neck before disappearing under the olive green of her jacket.

My eyes flicked to the photo of the infant Phoenix.

Markings? Check, same ones.

Weird freckles? Yep, seemed identical.

And those eyes... Those were my mother's eyes.

I knew they had seemed familiar.

"Who..." Gemini started, her frown deepening the longer she took in the photos.

"Erin Jackson. The girl from earlier, Eastvale escapee." Fwhip said, gesturing to information written in print just below the photos. "The elf who had illegally lived in Eastvale up until two weeks ago. The Jacksons did in fact claim to have found her alone, but there are zero records of an elf ever being born in Eastvale, let alone in the Grimlands."

"Why are those mugshots?" Gemini asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Mugshots?" Shrub spoke up, sounding just as confused as I felt at the word.

"A photograph taken of someone for criminal records." The Wizard explained shortly.

Ohhh.