Iris drove Merlin to work the next day. Her ankle was sprained badly, but luckily it was her left one, so she could still drive. Merlin offered to drive this morning, but she had refused. She had also refused crutches, but at least she was wearing the cast that she had gotten at the hospital after their 'escape.' They didn't talk during the drive. They didn't even listen to music, which had Merlin so on edge that he wanted to punch something, but he let them go on in silence, because he knew that Iris needed it.
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They had always been fairly popular. They were essentially the 'dynamic duo' of the precinct, but now, with everything that had happened, they were followed by stares everywhere. They tried to ignore them. Instead, they went to their regular desks. There looked at each other over the mountains of paperwork that had appeared and sighed quietly. It was going to be a long day.
It was a very long day, and neither one of them was thrilled to be kept later than necessary by their boss. And yet, life's not fair. He called them into his office just as they had been packing up to go home.
They sat down across from him. Elijah Hoffman was a tall, middle-aged man with dark skin, and a shaved head.
"So." He had the personality of a lion. Regal, but not afraid to lash out if you messed with him.
"You two idiots managed to get yourselves kidnapped." He had not gone to college, but rather had gone straight into the academy from high school. He had spent seven years as a police officer, five as a detective, and then had rapidly climbed the ranks all the way to Chief Superintendent, where he had decided to stay, despite many more promotions that had practically been shoved at him. Everyone at the station was slightly afraid of him.
"It's not like we were trying." Everyone except Merlin. Hoffman's eyes flashed dangerously.
"Not only did you get yourselves kidnapped, you got an FBI agent kidnapped with you. An FBI agent who is now deceased. Murdered. And while we have your story, we don't have the person who killed him, because you killed her. And don't even get me started on the random dead civilian." Judging by his tone of voice, he was not happy. Merlin was also panicking slightly at what Freya may have put into her report. Realistically, the report couldn't possibly be finished yet, but that didn't stop a billion scenarios from running through his head, each one worse than the last. Because of this, he barely heard it when Hoffman continued speaking.
"Now, I'm presented with a dilemma of sorts. A case has come across my desk that, under normal circumstances, I would give to the two of you. It's just the sort of weird shit you two freaks get off on." Iris didn't even pretend to look offended.
"Under normal circumstances?" she prompted.
"Well, now that you are officially on probation, and I can't do that. So, I am giving this case to detective Abernathy. However-"
"But Abernathy's an idiot!" Iris protested. Hoffman shut her down with a glare, but her sudden yell at least had the benefit of bringing Merlin back to his senses.
"However," he continued. "If you were to glance at the case file while it was on Abernathy's desk, I don't think anybody would protest. And if you were to take a long lunch, because of course, you've been through a lot as of late, no one would think that was odd."
"Sir," Merlin said cautiously. "Are you giving us permission to steal Abernathy's case?" Hoffman's face was thunderous, but there was a glint in his eye.
"I am doing no such thing! That would be completely unprofessional, and show obvious signs of favoritism. I am simply laying out a set of circumstances." He looked both of them in the eye, one by one. "Understood." They nodded, and Merlin went from worried to very excited.
"Yes, sir," they chorused in unison.
"Good." Iris and Merlin, thinking they had been dismissed, moved to stand.
"And where the hell do you think you two are going?" They sat back down. "Hmph. I can't just let you go. You've still been through a trauma, which means I've already made you each an appointment with psych, and one joint appointment as well." Iris opened her mouth to protest, but Hoffman held up a hand. "It's procedure. You don't have to like it, but you do have to go. That is an order. You will both receive messages detailing when your appointments are.
"Yes, sir." This time they sounded much more dejected. They stayed seated this time, not wanting to be yelled at again.
"Dismissed," Hoffman stated with a bored wave of his hand. Iris and Merlin couldn't get out of there fast enough. Merlin already had his phone out when they reached Abernathy's desk. Abernathy had left early, as usual. Hoffman hadn't told them which file it was, and there were quite a few. At any given moment, detectives had at least four open cases; usually more, but Abernathy was so incompetent that she always had the lightest case load.
They decided on the file that was at the top of the stack. Seemed reasonable. They opened it and took pictures of every page. Nobody in the precinct said anything about it. After all, this wasn't the first time Detectives Emrys and Campbell had stuck their noses into other peoples' cases. The other officers and detectives were just glad it wasn't them this time. Sure, they were on probation, but nobody had seen those two take a day off ever until yesterday. They were probably just bored. It's not like they could do any damage. With Abernathy on the case, it was probably never going to get solved anyway.
Merlin texted Iris the photos. They always started off a new case by looking at it separately. They would come together with ideas later.
And come together they did. Just as Hoffman had suggested, the next day they took a long lunch. While they sat at their favorite coffee/book shop (odd combination, but a wonderful one nonetheless) they shared their theories.
"We should talk to the guy who found the body. Judging from this statement, if you can even call it that," Iris scoffed, "the officer who interviewed wasn't very thorough." Merlin nodded in agreement.
"Agreed. Also, this 'main suspect,' and I use that term incredibly loosely, doesn't make any sense. She has an alibi for gods' sake, and a good one at that!"
"So we agree. The entire handling of this case is one big catastrophe."
"Pretty much, yes."
"You excited?" Iris was grinning. Merlin returned the grin.
"Hell yes." Iris grabbed a piece of ham from her croissant and placed it on the floor in front of one of the three cats who roamed the shop. The cat, a handsome tuxedo, gobbled it up and mewed appreciatively, before moving on to the next table. Merlin looked at the clock.
"We should get back. Talk to the witness in the morning?" Iris nodded, mind already racing at the prospect of a new case to distract her.
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Freya looked once more at the pictures strewn across her lab floor. She didn't have the room to recreate the full blueprint of the caverns, but she had looked at all of the separate sections multiple times, wishing for it to make sense. She had managed to get her hands on Iris and Merlin's statements, so that she could compare their version of events to what the footprints showed.
She wanted to believe her friends; to believe Iris especially. The problem was, she couldn't, because the evidence just didn't support it. At least not all of it. That was possibly the most bizarre part. The first cavern supported their story perfectly, but everything beyond it made literally no sense.
There were prints on the floor from four different people, and something else. They matched Emma Johnson, Jacob Johnson, Merlin and Iris. But, according to Merlin and Iris, there had been a fifth person, William Terell, in the cave. There were other footprints from something like a very large reptile, only they didn't match any reptile Freya had ever seen.
Now, the footprints weren't perfect, because they were made in dust, so it was difficult tell what exactly had happened. One thing was for sure though. Merlin and Iris were lying about it. Freya sighed, shaking her head, and gathered up that batch of photos, putting them in a messy stack on her desk next to all of the other stacks.
Also lying on the table were two almost identical swords. In a bag next to them were the sword fragments from that first crime scene. She had matched them to the sword that had been brought in as evidence after the whole ordeal. At least one thing made sense. That sword was definitely the murder weapon, at least for some of the cases.
The glow that was on the fragments was on the rest of the sword as well, and it was on the sword that Merlin had brought in from god knows where. The glows were different though. The glow on the murder sword was a harsh gold, flecked with green. The glow on Merlin's sword was softer, almost kinder.
Now, most people would be super weirded out by glowing swords. Freya was not most people. She had an interesting relationship with magic. She thought about it like she thought about ghosts. It was definitely real, she had seen it with her own eyes, but it should be left alone, not sought out.
"You shouldn't joke about magic."
"I wasn't joking."
She had said that to test him, and she was both sorry and ecstatic at his answer. It meant she was right. You see, the aura around the swords were not the only things she had seen of magical origin. She was a rare type of person. She wasn't sure what to call herself, and she had never talked to anyone about it, but she often saw things, very abnormal things.
The glow on the swords. She had only mentioned it after looking through the microscope, but she had seen it when the pieces were first brought in. And she could see it around people. Only when she concentrated. It had been easier when she was a child, but she tried to do it with almost everyone she met. It allowed her to get a sense of who that person was.
Iris' aura was a clear red. Freya had had to look pretty hard, but it was there, shining around the woman. It turned her eyes to the most beautiful golden brown, and her skin glowed. Of course, her skin always glowed, but...Freya reigned in her thoughts.
She hadn't even had to try to see Merlin's. It was just always there, glowing a bright and consistent gold.
"I'm Freya, the lab tech."
"I figured. We are in a lab after all." She laughed.
"Oh. Right."
"I'm Merlin."
"Cool eyes."
"What do you mean?"
The first time they had met, she had seen that aura, but she had also seen something else. His eyes. They were gold. He had seemed very confused by her compliment, and when she looked again, she found that they were green.
Merlin didn't know it, but his magic had noticed her noticing, and had compensated accordingly. It did that more often than he could possibly realize.
You see, Freya had something called the true sight. It's something that most children are born with, but grow out of pretty quickly. It's easier for children to see the magic in the world. It's not a far cry from imagination, and everyone knows that's what kids specialize in. Unfortunately, imagination is pretty well shoved out of children around secondary school age. But, very rarely, there comes a person who manages to retain that sort of creative wonder, and those are the people with the true sight. They can see magic, even hidden magic. A lot of those people become psychics and aura readers, which is ridiculous because nobody really knows what auras mean, and although those people can see the colors that surround all living things, they essentially just make up the 'meanings' for their own gain.
Freya didn't know what it was called, or really what it was, it was just something that she'd always had.
When she had walked into that first cavern, step by step, taking pictures of the ground, she had seen the residual golden glow, but she hadn't really thought much of it. After all, this cavern wasn't even supposed to be here. Of course it was magical in some way. The fact that Iris had just happened to fall right then, effectively distracting everyone, and that Merlin had waited a few second to check on her, and the residual glow of magic.
Freya sighed. She feared that she knew exactly what was going on, but that didn't mean she was willing to accept it just yet.
Just realized the timeline of this chapter was super inconsistent so I changed a few things. I should probably edit before I publish chapters, but oh well.
xoxo
-Sierra <3